Colorful Growing fast in graphics card market

Ok so mainia in the Asia region, but still surprizing news. China-based Colorful is gradually catching up with first-tier vendors in the graphics card market in terms of shipments.

Colorful's shipments have already surpassed those of Micro-Star International (MSI) and Gigabyte Technology in the first half and will exceed those of Asustek Computer in 2015 to make the China-based vendor the second-largest worldwide, lagging behind only Palit Microsystems, according to sources from the graphics card upstream supply chain.

Since Colorful has been trying to boost its motherboard sales via help from the graphics card business, the sources believe the vendor may become a big threat to Asustek and Gigabyte also in the motherboard market.

The sources pointed out that overall graphics card sales have been dropping and only demand from China is still stable. Graphics card shipments in China are about 16-17 million units a year, accounting for over 50% of the global volume. Colorful, Galaxy and Zotac are the leading players in China's graphics card market.

Colorful, which mainly focuses on the China market, is able to ship 500,000 graphics cards per month and may be able ship five million units in 2015. Galaxy's monthly output is about 400,000-450,000 units and is expected to ship close to five million units in 2015, including shipments to Europe, North America, Australia, Japan and Korea. Zotac is expected to ship about three million units in 2015, the sources noted.

Asustek shipped five million graphics cards in 2014 and expects its shipments in 2015 to stay at the same level. But the vendor is expected to be surpassed by Colorful and Galaxy since its share in the China market has not seen any growth, the sources said.

Gigabyte shipped 3.6 million graphics cards and MSI 2.9 million units in 2014, but their shipments may decline 5-10% on year in 2015 and are currently facing fierce competition from Zotac, Maxsun, Gainward and Onda, the sources pointed out.

As for GPUs, Nvidia-based GPUs currently have 70% of share in the worldwide graphics card market.

Palit, which has sub-brands including Galaxy and Gainward, is expected to remain the largest vendor worldwide, the sources added.