Taiwanese motherboard maker ASRock, the third largest worldwide in 2012 following Asus and Gigabyte, is reportedly pushing to sell more than 8 million motherboards in 2013, up from 7.7 million units last year.
Currently, the company's motherboard business accounts for 90-percent of its revenue while its HTPC business only accounts for 5-percent. The remaining 5-percent stems from its embedded product business. ASRock has also "aggressively" entered the industrial PC (IPC) sector, according to COO Hsu Lung-luen, although the company hasn't seen any immediate profit.
Hsu recently told DigiTimes that ASRock suffered drops in both profit and gross margin in 2012 due to competitive pricing. However to make up for the lack of sales, the company will focus on expanding into the Chinese market in 2013 to gain support from local vendors. Shipments within China are expected to reach 30-percent, up from 20-percent in 2012.
Hsu also noted Intel's departure from the branded motherboard sector, saying that this move should help ASRock meet its 8 million plus shipment goal in 2013. The first quarter should see a 5- to 10-percent growth, but a 10-percent drop is expected in the second. Meanwhile, the company's EPS is expected to grow from NT$8-9 ($0.27-0.3 USD) in 2012 to above NT$9 in 2013 thanks to the launch of Intel's Haswell platform later on this year.
As for entering the tablet market, Hsu said ASRock has no plans to enter because the sector has "already turned unbearable" for companies with no advantages. He also made a comment about the whole LGA / BGA packaging ordeal surrounding Intel, saying that mobile products need to be thinner, thus requiring the BGA packaging. The desktop market probably won't be affected until the end of 2015, he said.
