Motherboard shipments down in Q1 2017

Industry sources told DigiTimes that sales of motherboards fell in the first quarter of this year. Asustek and Gigabyte, the two biggest motherboard makers, shipped 3.8 million and 3.5 million units, respectively, in the first quarter, marking a drop versus the previous year.

The site identifies a variety of reasons for the lower shipments, including the limited attraction of Intel's new Kaby Lake processors and a lack of new video games that push hardware needs to the next level.

Motherboard and video card makers hope the arrival of AMD's Ryzen processor and the upcoming launch of the Vega GPU will be able to turn the tide and boost sales. DigiTimes heard video card vendors expect a 15 percent sequential drop in shipments this quarter as demand remains weak:

The sources also noted that motherboard and graphics card demand from China, Europe and North America all suffered declines in the first quarter, but motherboard players' product ASPs were up slightly thanks to strong demand for high-end models from the gaming sector.

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Because of weak demand, some graphics card players believe overall graphics card shipments may drop over 15% sequentially in the second quarter, but if AMD's Vega series GPUs are able to arrive on time and have stable supply, the percentage may be smaller, the sources noted.