One top four motherboard maker will die, says MSI

Posted at: 5:16pm 9th January 2009 by Ben Hardwidge

Either Asus, Gigabyte, MSI or ECS will bite the dust, predicts MSI’s Henry Lu

We’ve already seen Abit exit the motherboard business, and Foxconn has also started laying off staff, but MSI predicts that there could also be a major casualty at the top of the motherboard food chain within the next three years. If the prediction comes true, then this could mean the end of Asus, ECS, MSI or Gigabyte.

Taiwanese tech site DigiTimes reports that MSI’s vice president of products, Henry Lu made the claims. According to the site, Lu said that ‘after the three years, one of the top-four makers will need to be eliminated from the market in order for the other three to remain profitable.’ In the meantime, Lu said that ‘the makers are likely to see motherboard shipments maintain level or decline slightly,’ according to the site.

The top four motherboard manufacturers, according to DigiTimes, are Asustek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, Elite group Computer Systems (ECS) and Micro-Star International (MSI). According to the site, Lu said that one of the top four ‘will drop out of the market within the next few years since the limited expansion of the market will not be able to support the growth of the four giants any more.’ According to DigiTimes, Lu also pointed out that laptops shipments are now surpassing those of desktop PCs, implying that there will be no further expansion of the desktop motherboard industry.

It’s worth noting that there are no quotation marks in the DigiTimes article, which presumably means that the quotes are not directly taken from Lu, but are instead a summary of what he said.

Would you be sad to see one of the top four motherboard manufacturers go under, and do you think that MSI’s Henry Lu could be right about this? As always, feel free to share your opinions in the comments section below.