Taiwan motherboard industry overview

The year 2011 saw the motherboard industry reverse its trend of declining shipments year-on-year, to post a slight 0.2% growth. This upturn in fortunes was expected and came largely as the result of the improving global economy, but two major events, the recall of Intel's B2 stepping version of its new 6-series chipsets in the early part of the year, and the major flooding in Thailand which disrupted a significant proportion of the world's hard disk drive manufacturing facilities in the second half, both impacted demand for PCs through the year, which is why total shipments for the year, 102.2 million units, were only slightly above the previous year's total of 101.99 million units.