Motherboard makers bet on greater mini-PC sales

Motherboard makers are looking to mini PCs, a new form of desktop computer that measures about a quarter the size of a traditional computer, to boost their profit margins this year, analysts suggested yesterday.

"Recently motherboard makers have started aggressively making mini PCs," said Eve Jung (戎宜蘋), a PC systems analyst at ABN-AMRO in Taipei. Taiwan's leading motherboard manufacturers, including Gigabyte Technology Co (技嘉科技), Micro-Star International Co (微星科技) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) have already developed mini PCs.

An official at Gigabyte, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that the company did have a mini PC, but it was not in mass production yet. He predicted that sales of the mini PC would be "fair" due to its low price, but he did not expect astounding figures.

Motherboard makers are looking for bigger profit margins in a very competitive market that has shaved margins paper thin, Jung suggested.

Others agreed. "Profits are definitely better for these [mini PCs]," James Huang, (黃建銘), an analyst at SinoPac Securities Corp (建華證券), said.

Another factor fueling the interest in mini PCs is their desk-top space-saving potential, Huang said. However, the market does not seem to have caught on to the "trend." Huang estimated that mini PCs currently make up less than 5 percent of the market.

Back in December of 2002, Charles Smulders, a vice president at US-based tech research firm Gartner Inc, told the Taipei Times: "In the next two to three years there will be strong adoption in the market of [mini PCs]." Mini PCs are bare-bone computers about the size of a shoebox that cost under US$500. Smulders did not offer any predictions for the size of the market at that time.

Gartner has gathered figures on the "no-frills" computers since the beginning of 2001. In 2001, around 1 percent of all desktop PCs shipped were mini PCs. However, the market seems to be shrinking rather than growing. In the first three quarters of 2001, 835,700 mini PCs were sold. During the same period last year that figure had dropped 26 percent to just over 616,000.

"Whereas desktop PC shipments have remained flat globally, [mini PC] shipments are apparently down," said Amy Teng, a researcher at Gartner in Taipei.

At least two Taiwanese companies doing well despite the lack of growth in the mini PC market are Chyang Fun Industry Co (強復) and Shuttle Inc (浩鑫).

Danny Huang (黃琨鈿), a vice-president at Chyang Fun, revealed that his company sold approximately 200,000 mini PCs last year. Until last year, Shuttle was known for its motherboard production, but last year began selling mini PCs and shipped 250,000 units, according to one of the company's vice-presidents, Jonathan Yi (易守忠). That compares to 1.83 million motherboards shipped last year, Yi said.

Yi was speaking at the launch yesterday of Shuttle's latest mini PC model that integrates the latest graphics chip from Nvidia Corp, the world's leading vendor of the chips used to manipulate 3D pictures on computers and game consoles. The director of Nvidia's Taiwan branch, Terry Lin (林麗星), was on-hand at the product launch.

"We consider this an important development as it is the first all-in-one bare-bone product to include our [latest] graphics chip," Lin told the Taipei Times yesterday.

Mini PCs pack the same punch as much larger desktop systems. They can be used for word-processing, browsing the Internet, sending and receiving e-mails, but also to play the latest high-quality DVD movies and video games on a traditional computer display or television.