When analyzing the health of the market, we usually look at the sale of processors and graphics cards, but this is a mistake because it is the motherboard sales the one that marks the buying trend and the economy of the moment. Not only in volume, but also based on user choices. How were your sales in 2022?
It’s no secret that the common user sees less and less value in towers and it’s no surprise. After all, they don’t see the point of being able to add more components or replace existing ones, many see it as a waste of space, and the riot of cables that appear in the middle is annoying. In addition, they lose one of the main functions of a laptop, which is precisely to take it everywhere. That is why sales of motherboards for this type of computer are selling less and less, but last year was complicated to say the least.
Fall in motherboard sales last year
Well yes, motherboard sales declined, totaling about 10 millionand although this may seem like a paltry figure, it should be borne in mind that those used in computers already built in the factory are not included here, but those that users buy to assemble their computers or small specialized shops.
In any event, the sales figures for 2022, compared to 2021, are as follows:
- ASRock is the most affected of all, its sales from 2021 to 2022 have increased from 6 million to 2.7 million. That is, they sold 55% less year over year.
- Asus sold 18 million motherboards in 2021in exchange, in 2022, it remained at 13.6 millionwhich means a 25% cut.
- GIGABYTE has grown from 11 million in 2012 to 9.5 million in 2022. He suffered the least serious fall of all, with only the 14%.
- MSI It is the second company that has received and the greatest impact of alls, rising from 9.5 million motherboard sales in 2021 to 5.5 million. Which translates to hThey reduced their sales by 42%.
There are several reasons why this happened, one of them was the mining bubble and it was that many people who wanted to do a full update decided to wait until they got the maps handy graphics so they can put their new PC together. If we add to this that many users have opted for parts from a year or two ago as the basis of their computers, which had already been distributed, it is normal that fewer units were sold on release factory than in previous years.
An outdated business model that should disappear
A trap of processor manufacturers is to lower the price of the processor, by increasing the price of the motherboard that it needs to function. That is to say that one part cannot be used with the other and unfortunately the prices of motherboards have increased in order to keep, apparently, those of CPUs within certain margins and to make people see that they are less expensive. . Which is obviously a lie, since the two components go hand in hand.
As if that weren’t enough, we find different chipsets instead of providing additional ports for peripherals and components, as well as having a higher quality analog circuitry that ends up pulling prices above what is necessary for the end user. It is a pity that there are no chipsets on the expansion cards, which serve to add more ports if we need them and to reduce the exaggerated and unimportant offer on the motherboards.
