The motherboard orders that Gigabyte Technology is receiving thus far in the first quarter of 2018 are much lower than those received during the same period of a year earlier, an apparent result of the departure of some of its top managers and likely all that has been happening with Intel.

The ex-president of Gigabyte China has joined Acer where he will be in charge of handling the company's emerging businesses including industrial PC (IPC) and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, reports DigiTimes today. Meanwhile, the ex-head of Gigabyte's Korea/Japan office has left for Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry). In 2017, Gigabyte's graphics card shipments reached a company record of 4.4-4.5 million units, thanks to cryptocurrency mining demand, boosting the firm's net profit to around NT$2 billion.

However, its motherboard shipments in the year shrank sharply by 3.6 million units to reach less than 13 million units due to the company's business re-organization and fierce competition from Asustek Computer and Micro-Star International (MSI). Since Gigabyte is currently the largest motherboard vendor in South Korea, some market watchers are concerned about the company's motherboard shipment results in 2018.

However, the market watchers believe Gigabyte's overall revenues will remain healthy in 2018 if graphics card demand can stay strong and orders for servers remain stable.