Micro-Star International (MSI) and Gigabyte Technology saw strong graphics card shipments in July, while ASRock and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) also saw improved results.
Thanks to strong shipments and profits from the gaming notebook business, MSI was able to achieve net profits of NT$2.03 billion (US$68.21 million) for the first half of 2017. Rising graphics card demand due to the cryptocurrency mining trend also helped buoy its revenues in the second quarter.
In July, despite a sequential decline, MSI's overall revenues still went up 12.4% on year to reach around NT$9 billion and its graphics card business remained the key growth driver.
Gigabyte, which started a business reorganization on August 1, saw its July revenues increase 26.29% sequentially and 11.44% on year. Gigabyte shipped 6.6 million motherboards in the first half, down 1.9 million units from first-half 2016's 8.5 million.
Although Gigabyte continued to suffer from weak motherboard shipments in July with volumes arriving at only 950,000 units, demand from the cryptocurrency mining trend still generated increased graphics card sales to boost the company's July revenues.
Gigabyte shipped 1.9 million graphics cards in the first half of 2017, up from 1.6 million units on year, while its shipments in July also set a new monthly record at 550,000 units. Although the company currently still performs stably, it may still face operation difficulties once the mining trend starts cooling off.
ASRock reported consolidated revenues of around NT$900 million in July, down 2.1% on month, but up dramatically by 55.34% on year and combined consolidated revenues for the first seven months of 2017 reached NT$5.24 billion, up 29.78% on year.
In addition to rising motherboard shipments and product ASP, ASRock also saw increased demand for its server and industrial PC (IPC) products. The company has recently begun delivering new products to fulfill orders from clients in North America and China and its annual motherboard shipments are expected to stay at around four million units in 2017 with EPS at NT$4.
After reporting losses incurred from the Venezuela government's bad debts in its second-quarter 2016 financial results, ECS has seen its operation gradually improving. ECS' notebook and motherboard shipments have been rising in the past couple of quarters. Although the company so far still has not yet been able to significantly expand its presence in the high-end and gaming sectors, its performance in the entry-level area has been better than expected, helping its July revenues stay on the growth track.
For the third quarter, most motherboard and graphics card players expect limited recovery in PC demand, but their sales will still grow sequentially because of the mining trend, Intel's and AMD's new PC and server platforms and AMD's GPU products.
Motherboard/graphics card players have reported strong results for July
Photo: Digitimes file photo
Article translated by Joseph Tsai
