Motherboard prices to rise sharply

Motherboard companies are responding to increasing prices of key raw materials across the world such as copper in addition to spiraling labor costs by planning price-hikes of their motherboard products by as much as 10% in some cases, which will take effect by the end of Q1, 2012 or March. The vendors adopting these increased prices include major players such as ASUS and Gigabyte (the two biggest motherboard manufacturers). Motherboard prices were alread raised by 5-10% back in early-2011 to tune in with increased material costs and the impact of labor shortages, and by 3-8% in April 2011 due to shortages and increased prices of components sourced from Japan, in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami disaster of 2011.

Source: DigiTimes, TPU