Gigabyte Technology Co (‹Z‰Ã), the worldfs second-largest motherboard maker, yesterday said operations are likely slow this quarter, but the launch of new products is expected to boost sales from the second half of this year.

Shipments of its motherboards and graphics cards are expected to decline this quarter, the company said.

gThe April-to-June quarter is traditionally the softest quarter of the year... We expect the second half of this year to drive the companyfs operation, on the back of new products launched by a partner,h Gigabyte vice president of gaming product sales and marketing Eddie Lin (—щp‰F) told reporters on the sidelines of a gaming event in Taipei.

The company expects the combined shipments of its motherboards and graphic cards to fall by between 5 and 10 percent this quarter from the first quarter, said a second Gigybate employee, who declined to be named.

Overall this year motherboard shipments, which accounted for 61 percent of the firmfs total revenues of NT$50.82 billion (US$1.57 billion) last year, are expected to be flattish from last yearfs 17 million units, Lin said.

Graphic cards shipments, which contributed 13 percent of the firmfs total sales last year, are likely to grow from last yearfs 3.3 million units, thanks to new product launches and improving demand from emerging markets, Lin said.

Lin said the worldwide graphic-cards market, including Gigabyte, was affected by weak demand in emerging markets last year, mainly because of volatile currency exchanges, especially in eastern Europe, Russia and Brazil.

Lin said the company has noticed recovering demand from emerging markets since the beginning of this year and expects the situation to improve.

As part of efforts to support demand for the firmfs graphics cards, Lin said Gigabytefs gaming product business unit has hosted events for gamers and sponsored professional teams in a bid to create closer relationships with gamers worldwide.

Lin said the rising virtual reality industry would also help boost demand for higher-end graphics cards in the long-term.

Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (Œ³‘å“ŠŒÚ), on March 23, forecast Gigabyte revenues would drop this quarter by 5.47 percent to NT$12.61 billion from last quarterfs estimated sales of NT$13.34 billion.

gOverall, we expect a muted first half of this year for Gigabte due to a lack of new central processing unit launches by its key partner, Intel Corp,h Yuanta analyst Calvin Wei (é°Œšá¢) said in the note.

Wei said Gigabytefs revenues are likely to pick up significantly at the end of next quarter or the beginning of the fourth quarter when Intel launches its next central processing unit.

By: DocMemory
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