Gigabyte could be planning workforce cuts due to weak motherboard sales

[onetheycallEric]

In context: Gigabyte could cut 5 to 10 percent of their workforce amidst slow motherboard sales. Other companies like Asus and MSI have also previously acknowledged Intel's CPU shortage has impacted their sales.

Unfortunately, those working in Gigabyte's motherboard segment could be at risk of receiving walking papers, as the company is reportedly planning to reduce sales and marketing expenses for 2019. The report comes by way of DigiTimes citing "market observers," suggests that Gigabyte's motherboard business will be the sole target for layoffs, while their graphics card business is expected to be unaffected by the employment shrink.

According to DigiTimes, Gigabyte's motherboard sales have been declining since 2016, when they saw shipments of 16 million units. In 2017, shipments dwindled to 12.6 million. For 2018, Gigabyte shipped 11.4 million motherboards. The decline in sales is expected to continue in 2019, where Gigabyte aims to keep volume shipments above 10 million units. Meanwhile, Gigabyte's graphics cards shipments for 2018 came in at 3.5 million units, which is where they were at in 2016, before the great cryptocurreny mining bubble of 2017 set in.

Intel's well documented CPU shortage hasn't made things easy for OEMs and motherboard vendors alike, with companies like MSI and Asus also having to tighten the belt around their budget. Additionally, sluggish demand still lingers after the cryptomining bubble burst. It would seem Nvidia isn't the only one suffering from the proverbial "crypto hangover."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/78552-gigabyte-could-planning-workforce-cuts-due-weak-motherboard.html

 

[Evernessince]

Vendors that refuse to change with the times have no one but themselves to blame. When MSI's CEO comes out and says " it would be awkward to tell Intel if he chose to come out with an AMD-powered product".

They complain about lagging sales like MSI, all the while refusing to make AMD laptops or to put more effort into their AMD motherboards. Big surprise, when Intel has a shortage and you refuse to use other brands of processor or related ecosystem products you loose out on the marketshare.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Cryptocurrency craze must have convinced these people we were made of money.

 

[noel24]

Oh. Kickbacks (bribes) from Intel achieved its goal. OEMs die with Intel CPUs shortage. Good ridance, corrupt bastards.

 

[BSim500]

Unsurprising given most modern motherboards are generally rubbish. Budgets boards now come with 4x rear USB ports (even budget Haswell / Skylake came with 6x) and PCI-E 2.0 lanes like it's still 2007, most mid-range boards come with lower quality audio chips (ALC 8xx vs 1xxx) and inferior headphone amps as standard, 2x2 Wi-Fi AC regularly get artificially crippled down to 433Mbps instead of 866Mbps despite 2x antenna being visibly connected, VGA analogue outputs instead of DisplayPort on cheaper boards (as if "doesn't need overclocking" somehow = 'designed for 1997 CRT monitors'), junk M2 "coolers" that cause SSD's to run hotter, and 40x useless LED's minus the one that has a practical use (optical SPDIF out) on ITX's most likely to be used as HTPC's. Then they make about 40x over-segmented variants of each chipset, limit side by side comparisons to 3-4x at once on slow-loading websites, then complain about over-stocked inventories when users give up wading through hours of this BS and make do with what they've got for another year or two...

 

[captaincranky]

Or maybe Kidz, it could just be that builders are sick of the high prices of video cards, and not that many people are chafing at the bit to get locked into that Windows 10 garbage...

 

[dualkelly]

Or maybe Kidz, it could just be that builders are sick of the high prices of video cards, and not that many people are chafing at the bit to get locked into that Windows 10 garbage...

I will rather stab my own eyes out... than use windows 10 (saying its trash is understatement of the year) . So that leaves motherboards that have windows 7 and linux support. Another thing worth mentioning with few exceptions to 4k video upgrades actual software doesn't need any upgrade in cpu tech As often as they would like for us to shell out for a new mobo. I recently bought a Intel® Core™ i9-7980XE 18 core beast and it most likely will be about 7 years before I have to upgrade again.

 

[Palladium1987]

Well I'm not surprised. CPU upgrade cycles are getting longer and longer for the gamer crowd and the email grandma crowd would rather very much use phones instead of PCs.

 

[bas416]

They should consider more RGB leds, I bet that's what caused all the trouble.

 

[LeroN]

A low reliability among other manufacturers. An expensive shipping for RMA for different countries that can add 20-30% value and a lost time. Honestly Gigabyte has one of the most featured unexpensive mobos today especcialy if you want to get an Intel NIC with an AM4 platform. I don't know who else proposes optical and coaxial digital outputs together. But drawbacks with the reliability slided them down. Gigabyte was shining with Socket A and has faded out since LGA775.

 

[bas416]

A low reliability among other manufacturers. An expensive shipping for RMA for different countries that can add 20-30% value and a lost time. Honestly Gigabyte has one of the most featured unexpensive mobos today especcialy if you want to get an Intel NIC with an AM4 platform. I don't know who else proposes optical and coaxial digital outputs together. But drawbacks with the reliability slided them down. Gigabyte was shining with Socket A and has faded out since LGA775.

They were quite ok in the lga era, but maybe competition was so bad. There were differences between manufacturers back then.

 

[misor]

For my nephews new ryzen 2600 and ryzen 2700 PCs, I had chosen MSI B450M because they were available at that time.

what makes me buy or suggest a product.is its quality, availability, and affordability.

 

[Deezo]

I just bought the Aorus x470 mb for my 2700x chip. Very stout MB.