Motherboard shipments are going to see a sharp decrease in 2026 as PC component prices continue to rise, and consumer interest is at an all-time low.
Motherboard Makers Will Ship Several Million Lower Units Than Last Year As Consumer Interest In PC Hardware Spirals Down
PC component prices are at an all-time high. The worst-affected products are memory, graphics cards, and storage. Meanwhile, CPUs have also started to get more expensive as AI demand continues to get wilder each passing day. And it's not a matter of just rising prices; consumer hardware also sees wide-spread shortages.
The main reason is because manfufacturers are allocating production towards AI hardware. Gaming GPU manufacturers are prioritizing AI GPUs, Desktop/Laptop CPU manufacturers are prioritizing AI CPUs, and the DRAM/NAND segment as a whole is facing major constraints as demand from AI vendors continues to outstrip supply.
Most PC audiences, including gamers, are also not willing to upgrade their systems right now, as one of the main components, the graphics card, will see little to no action this year. NVIDIA's RTX 50 "SUPER" series is delayed (likely cancelled by now), and RTX 60 GPUs have been pushed back, as per rumors. NVIDIA has so far only focused on software-level updates since the release of its last RTX 50 GPU, the RTX 5050 in June last year.
In all of this, things are looking great for motherboard makers too. DigiTimes reports that ASUS is trying to keep its shipments above 10 million units versus the 15 million units it shipped last year. MSI and Gigabyte have declined below 10 million units at 8.4 million (vs 11 million) and 11.5 million (vs 8.5 million) units, respectively. This marks a 25% decline in motherboard shipments for the two brands.
Supply chain sources say that despite a sharp drop in motherboard shipments and a contraction in graphics card shipments, AI servers have become the main driver of revenue growth for ASUS, Gigabyte, and ASRock, which will offset the decline in motherboard and graphics card profits, and overall profitability remains stable.
Machine Translated via DigiTimes
ASRock's total motherboard units are expected to reach only 2.7 million units, a 30%+ decline versus last year's 4.3 million units.
If ASUS's shipments fall below 10 million units, this will be far worse for the company than during the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. To make matters worse, material costs have also gone up, and motherboards are incurring a 10-20% price hike. This is making some board vendors cut specs and design of their existing products to cover the costs.
While the motherboard market will affect the PC DIY revenue, ASUS, ASRock, and Gigabyte will easily offset the downfall from their AI segments, which will be their primary revenue driver for 2026 & beyond.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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