In 2024, motherboard supplies will reach pre-pandemic levels

Motherboard shipments will reach pre-pandemic levels this year. According to DigiTimes, the four largest motherboard manufacturers – Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and ASRock – will supply 38.8 million units of their products to the market. Sales of Asus are expected to be 15 million motherboards, Gigabyte – 10.3 million units, MSI – 9.3 million units, ASRock – 4.2 million units.

Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, motherboard sales have plummeted. The first decline in sales was recorded in 2020, when, due to the introduction of a lockdown in many countries in March amid the first wave of coronavirus, shipments of motherboards and graphics processors fell to record lows. Then in 2022, almost three years after global restrictions began, the motherboard market contracted even further, with sales falling by 10 million units, or almost 25% year-on-year. However, the following year the market began to recover sharply, and total shipments, according to analysts, amounted to almost 37 million motherboards.

One factor in the recovery was China opening its borders in 2023 after nearly three years of travel restrictions. The arrival of new processors in the second half of 2024 is also expected to boost sales of new motherboards. AMD Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors will go on sale on July 31, while Intel Arrow Lake chips are expected to arrive by October.

While AM5 motherboards will still support Ryzen 9000 chips, AMD also introduced the X870 and X870E chipsets with USB 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 support, which should encourage Ryzen 9000 buyers to upgrade their existing motherboards. At the same time, Intel Core Ultra 200 series processors will use the new generation LGA 1851 socket, so manufacturers are preparing new 800 series motherboards for the new Intel processors.