Asustek Computer and Gigabyte Technology are seeing their combined share in China's motherboard market surpassing 75% in 2014 and the percentage is expected to rise further to 80% in 2015, edging out several of its competitors, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Worldwide motherboard shipments are expected to drop around 10% on year in 2014 because of weaker-than-expected demand in China and to maintain their shipments and profits, Asustek and Gigabyte have been offering price cuts in Europe and China to stimulate demand.
Asustek and Gigabyte are both expected to be able to ship 20 million or more motherboards in 2014, the sources noted.
Facing the top-2 vendors' fierce competition, Micro-Star International (MSI) and ASRock have both seen their shipments to China decrease dramatically in 2014, while China-based Colorful, Onda, Soyo, Maxsun and Supox are struggling to survive in the market. Third-tier players such as ASL, Yeston, Jwele, Topstar and Jetway may be eliminated from the market in 2015, the sources said.
MSI and ASRock have recently started readjusting their operation teams in China and have been expanding their channel reaches in China and tuning marketing strategies, looking to take back some of their market shares, the sources added.
