motherboard manufacturers, popular Taiwanese Internet resource DigiTimes, in recent quarters have not experienced positive emotions about the current demand for components. The scarcity of Intel processors does not help the situation at all, and the growing friction between the US and China threatens to deepen and widen the decline in board demand. Until the first quarter of last year, manufacturers were greatly helped by the topic of mining cryptocurrencies. After the depreciation of digital coins, the demand and sales of motherboards and video cards returned to normal levels, depriving manufacturers of good profits. This and other factors caused leading Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers to significantly reduce revenue in the first quarter of 2019.
More than half of motherboards end up in China. In this country, the market for components for self-assembly of PCs is the largest in the world. In part, this compensates for the losses of manufacturers from the introduction of new duties on goods from China in the United States. According to the latest orders of the administration of US President Donald Trump, tariffs from 10% to 25%. China also intends to introduce retaliatory duties at the same percentage. Obviously, this will lead to an increase in the cost of Chinese products in the US and to an increase in prices for products with American components in China. In both cases, motherboards and video cards will become more expensive, as they use components made in both countries. Consequently, the market for components for self-assembly of computing systems is at risk of facing a decrease in demand for video cards and boards.
As for manufacturers, they have already made up some of the losses in the form of tariffs on goods, supplying Chinese products to the United States with a surcharge of 10%. A jump in duties to 25% would require an increase of only 15%, not 25%. In addition, manufacturers are increasing the production of components outside of China, which allows them to hope to avoid punitive surcharges. Most motherboards in China are supplied by ASUSTeK Computer and Gigabyte Technology. They will be less affected by the new trade duties, while Micro-Star International (MSI), ASRock and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) have a smaller proportion of board shipments to China. In any case, the first to suffer from the trade conflict between the US and China are ordinary users, who, as a rule, do not have room to maneuver, but have a desire to build a new or upgrade an old system.
Source: 3dnews.ru