Asus, Gigabyte Lower Motherboard Projections, Bemoan Lost GPU Bundles: Report
And no relief is expected with the impending arrival of next-gen CPUs and motherboards.
According to DigiTimes' sources, Taiwan PC industry sources say Asus and Gigabyte have doom-laden projections for the motherboard industry through the rest of 2022. According to the report, Asus and Gigabyte have approximately 70% of the motherboard market and they both expect sales volumes to drop by approximately 25% compared to 2021. The publication says this is due in part to the end of GPU bundling with motherboards along with demand shrinkage in the Chinese DIY market.
An early warning sign of the coming slowdown manifested in the Q2 2022 motherboard shipment figures — larger than expected shipment reductions in Q2 portend weaker shipments going into Q3, and possibly into Q4.
As for the root causes, the industry insiders say the end of the consumer GPU drought has hurt motherboard sales. GPU shortages allowed the likes of Asus and Gigabyte to promote motherboard sales by bundling them with GPUs, effectively forcing customers to buy their motherboards, thus leading to higher than normal sales volume. You might have also seen other components bundled with GPUs, too. During the depths of the GPU drought, people even bought and cannibalized whole pre-built PCs to get the GPU.
|
Year |
Asus motherboards |
Gigabyte motherboards |
|---|---|---|
|
2022 (projected) |
14 million |
9.5 million |
|
2021 |
18 million |
13 million |
|
2020 |
NA |
13 million |
|
2019 |
16.4 million |
NA |
According to DigiTimes, Asus expects its motherboard sales to fall ~24% and Gigabyte expects a ~27% decline this year. Moreover, the whole market will have dropped from ~40 million units to ~30 million units sold from 2021 to 2022.
With the introduction of AMD Ryzen 7000 and AM5 motherboards later this year, not forgetting Intel's 13th-Gen Core Raptor Lake processors and 700-series motherboard chipsets, one might expect the motherboard industry to enjoy a boost. However, according to DigiTimes' sources, the next-gen CPUs and motherboards won't stir PC DIYers or laptop buyers into action. Instead, they contend that other events, like the return of cryptomining, the end Russia-Ukraine war, or an easing of inflation, could help spur a turnaround.
There are signs that cryptomining on PC GPUs is over for good this time around--or at least for the foreseeable future. Gamers have taken up some GPU sales slack from cryptominers, but it isn't enough to compensate for the sudden supply imbalance. As a result, we now see plentiful supplies of modern GPUs. We might move into GPU oversupply territory with mining organizations selling their gear combined with current-gen stocks being left unsold as we near the launch of next-generation products. All of this means that the motherboard makers probably won't be able to return to the days of selling motherboards forcibly by bundling them with GPUs, which is bad for them but good for us.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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daworstplaya Good! It was a horrible practice to begin with and I'm glad it's over. Basically highway robbery.Reply -
bigdragon ReplyHowever, according to DigiTimes' sources, the next-gen CPUs and motherboards won't stir PC DIYers or laptop buyers into action. Instead, they contend that other events, like the return of cryptomining, the end Russia-Ukraine war, or an easing of inflation, could help spur a turnaround.
This tells me that analysts and vendors have become reliant upon crypto to fuel unsustainable growth in product shipments and prices. A$U$ and friends were happy to pander to miners and force gamers into bundling. Now that the miners are gone, all of those companies are desperate for someone, anyone, to pick up the demand slack. Gamers need to keep waiting and let those prices fall. Don't let the GPU vendors bait you into Stockholm syndrome. ROG and that weird looking eagle with an arm mouth thing need to face consequences for their actions last year. -
cryoburner If they sold a large number of motherboards to end-users and resellers who didn't have need of them, then it's only logical to assume that a good portion of those boards ended up on the reseller market, and may now be competing with sales of additional boards.Reply
Intel's upcoming CPUs should be compatible with those existing boards, at least after a BIOS update, and AMD's new lineup probably won't be coming until sometime in the last quarter, and might be limited to the higher-end initially, so sales of boards for those processors may be rather limited this year. -
digitalgriffin Replycryoburner said:If they sold a large number of motherboards to end-users and resellers who didn't have need of them, then it's only logical to assume that a good portion of those boards ended up on the reseller market, and may now be competing with sales of additional boards.
Intel's upcoming CPUs should be compatible with those existing boards, at least after a BIOS update, and AMD's new lineup probably won't be coming until sometime in the last quarter, and might be limited to the higher-end initially, so sales of boards for those processors may be rather limited this year.
Unfortunately the motherboards often bundled with said graphics card were absolute crap on quality/stability. (Similar to the PSU's bundled with graphics cards)