Neither Asustek Computer nor Gigabyte Technology is likely to be able to achieve their 5.8 million motherboard shipment targets for the third quarter, as demand in China remains weak and the retail channel's orders ahead of China's National Day holidays have been also worse than those of previous years, according market sources.
Asustek and Gigabyte are expected to ship around 5.6 million motherboards each in the third quarter, the sources said.
The two motherboard players originally expected Intel's new Haswell Refresh processors, 9 series chipsets and K series processors to trigger a replacement trend and help boost their sales in the second half.
Although Intel released its top-end Haswell-E processors and X99 chipsets at the end of August, the products are expected to have limited contribution to sales.
To keep their annual shipment goals of 20-22 million motherboards, the two players are expected to become more aggressive in snatching market shares from competitors and the price competition in the fourth quarter is expected to grow even fiercer.
Motherboard players have also been aggressively creating innovative product features to enhance their brand images.
Article translated by Joseph Tsai
