2022 will certainly be remembered as a scary year for the big four motherboard makers.According to upstream supply chain sources, Taiwan’s Digi Times, motherboard shipments by Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock dropped by about 10 million units this year. According to the report, the observed “weak demand” for motherboards he has seen throughout the year has been subject to the usual suspects. Workers returning to office, crypto recession, economic downturn.
2022/3 saw the release of some great new motherboards and some impressive new processors, but PC enthusiasts and DIY enthusiasts seem to be holding off for now. Specifically, Intel’s 700-series LGA1700 motherboards and AMD’s 600-series chipset AM5 motherboards have not achieved the expected numbers. For Intel, this makes more sense as they can upgrade previous generation motherboards (of Alder Lake systems) to the latest Raptor Lake parts. For AMD, it’s more of a concern because they changed sockets last year (after a few years with AM4), but people were hesitant because the upgrade would cost a lot (processor, motherboard, and required DDR5 memory).
In that report, DigiTimes shared some numbers on 2022 shipments for each of the big four motherboard makers. Some of these Taiwanese brands saw a significant drop in shipments.
|
brand |
2021 Units (M) |
2022 units (M) |
Rate of change |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Asus |
18+ |
13.6 |
-twenty five% |
|
gigabyte |
11 |
~9.5 |
-14% |
|
MSI |
9.5 |
5.5 |
-42% |
|
ASRock |
~6 |
2.7 |
-55% |
The two biggest brands appear to be least affected by the 2022 situation, but they weren’t unscathed. Perhaps the biggest upset is MSI’s decline. Despite MSI’s reputation in recent years, it still suffers almost as badly as ASRock.
Finally, regarding the comparison above, 2021 benefited from some of the positive impacts the pandemic and WFH had on the tech industry. However, all the numbers for 2022 were worse than his 2018 (although we don’t have shipping data for his MSI motherboards for 2018). Looking into next year, most brands expect to maintain or exceed his 2022 shipment numbers.
Earlier this week, we reported on some of the toughest surveys we’ve seen on the state of the PC industry. Mercury Research has published a report stating that the PC x86 CPU market has endured “the largest quarterly and yearly decline in the company’s 30-year history.” Decline may be the worst in PC history, but Mercury’s bloodline doesn’t go all that far back in history.
Despite the gloom, there are still plenty of companies and commentators hoping for a turnaround in mid-2023. We always hope that new waves of PC sales and upgrades will be fueled by thrilling new components. We also welcome intense competition.
