Gigabyte makes cash off server boards

Server motherboards stand for comfort

Motherboard makers have been getting a good kicking over recent years but Gigabyte is seeing some light at the end of the tunnel thanks to increased shipments for server motherboards.

Worldwide motherboard shipments have been seeing over 10 per cent on-year drop every year for the past five years and top two outfits Asustek and Gigabyte together only shipped 16-17 million motherboards in 2016. Their rivals, MSI, ASRock, ECS and Biostar shipped less than five million units each.

Motherboard and graphics card products contribute 80 per cent of Gigabyte’s revenues, while the remaining 20 per cent is contributed by smaller businesses such as notebooks and servers.

Gigabyte landed some big orders from Google for server products previously, but the company has only been receiving small-volume orders or Dell’s short-term orders in the past couple of years because of fierce competitions from Quanta Computer and Inventec.

But now the cloud as arrived, Gigabyte has recently landed new orders from US- and Europe-based clients and is shipping the devices since the first quarter.

This will make more than 15 per cent of Gigabyte’s revenues in 2017 and will also help the company achieve better-than-expected profits for the year.

Meanwhile ASRock shipped less than four million motherboards in 2016, but the company’s performances in server and industrial PC product lines have also been growing.

The only other motherboard maker who is doing well is MSI. Its ace in the hole has been its strong gaming notebook business and stable profits from its notebook and graphics card product lines