14 DAY TRIAL // Back in late June and very early this month, most motherboard makers were quite conservative when it came to their expectations for the month of July. Now, they appear to have changed their outlook, if a recent report is anything to go by. Apparently, companies such as ASUS, ECS, MSI, ASRock and Gigabyte already shipped a significant amount of platforms. As such, they now expect their monthly shipments to grow by a significant percentage compared to June.
Initially, manufacturers were concerned because the demand in Europe and China proved to be weaker than expected during the second quarter. Granted, those expectations existed because the first quarter was especially lucrative this year, prompting players to assume Q2 will be just as favorable. Then, in the early half of the ongoing month, demand started to pick up.
ASUS supposedly shipped about 10.3 million own-branded motherboard already, while Gigabyte took second place with 8.4 million units, followed by ECS (Elitegroup Computer Systems) with 4.4 million. Micro-Star International reportedly managed 3.8 million, whereas ASRock sold 3.9 million.
All in all, the companies believe that July shipments will increase by 20% on month. They also predict a 15-20% rise for the entire third quarter, at least this is what sources from motherboard maker state, according to Digitimes.
Nevertheless, the same unnamed sources said that volumes in the third quarter won't jump back to the same level as the ones in Q1. As for what will happen later, the general forecast is for strong demand during October, after which it will weaken in November and December. In order to cope with these shifting marketing conditions, suppliers of motherboards will have to be especially mindful of their marketing strategies during Q3 if they hope to boost sales. The report speculates that a price war may spark in August and September, especially in China.