Sunday, 16 December 2012 08:08

Is the component market stagnating?

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Manufacturers of hardware components are not expecting a significant recovery of the PC market over the next year. Asus and Gigabyte, both leading manufacturer of motherboards, have said that in 2013 they expect an equal or slightly lower number of deliveries of motherboards than was the case this year.

Asus plans to deliver approximately 21.5 million motherboards next year, or 2.3 percent less than this year when they shipped 22 million. The numbers for 2012 are also less than the originally planned 25 million motherboards. Gigabyte intends to deliver approximately 19 million motherboards next year, which is pretty much the same as they did this year.

Although the delivery of motherboards in 2013 will be the same or slightly less, both company’s business is somewhat different compared to 2011. Asus marked a 5.2 percent decline in shipments, while Gigabyte delivered 11.8 percent more motherboards in 2012 over 2011. Gigabyte has had a successful year in the video card market with deliveries of 3.5 million units which is 20.7 percent more than they did in 2011. One of the leading factors that has contributed to this stagnation of motherboards for desktop computers supply has been rapid growth in the mobile segment, particularly laptops and tablets.


[Ed - Fortunately for Asus they have a good foothold on both of the tablet and notebook markets in the US and around the globe. Gigabyte on the other hand has only recently broken into the US market and has not had the resources to put into a solid marketing campaign to get these devices into the hands of the consumer. We talked with Gigabyte about this last year at CES and, at the time, their strategy was a slow entry and build up in the US market. History has shown that the way to the US consumers’ heart is to shove it in their face and make them feel like they cannot live without it. You also need to get into the big retails stores like Best Buy, Wal-Mart and even Target. Asus has already breached this market segment which puts them in a little better position that Gigabyte moving into 2013.]

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