Due to decreasing sales of mainboards, well-known motherboard maker Abit may quit this market in order to focus on other components of personal computers. The actual decision has not been made yet, but the parent company of Abit, Universal Scientific Industrial, may proceed with the restructuring plan if the mainboard supplier fails to demo sales increase with Intel P45-based mainboards.
Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) hoped that Abit would be able to offer higher quality products than the rest second-tier mainboard makers and will compete against first-tier makers for mainstream and entry level markets thanks to low prices, however, expectations of USI were not met, reports DigiTimes web-site. Universal Scientific Industrial is reportedly mulling to pull out Abit brand from the motherboard business and refocus the company on other devices.
Abit shipped from two to three million of mainboards last year, but the goal of supplying six million this year may not be achieved due to decreasing sales of Abit mainboards.
At present Abit and USI hope that the forthcoming launch of new Intel P45-based mainboards will boost competitive position of Abit and will drive sales up. Potentially, since Intel P45 is the last performance core-logic for Intel Core 2 processors and LGA775 form-factor, even second-tier makers may invest a lot into development of P45-powered mainboards and ensure that they are maximally attractive for customers since they will have a long lifespan.
This is not the first time for Abit to have hard times due to low sales and similar situation is pretty common around the computer components industry. It is extremely tough for second-tier makers of mainboards and graphics cards to compete against larger suppliers since the latter enjoy lower prices due to high volumes, whereas smaller manufacturers have to keep pricing of final products on the low level.
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