Another major hardware producer may venture into the GPU market very soon. Motherboard manufacturer Asrock is reportedly going to offer new products for cryptocurrency mining in April. Currently, the company enjoys strong demand from crypto miners for its motherboards. Mining equipment shipments boosted its sales in 2017.
Asrock May Offer Miners an Alternative
Hardware manufacturer Asrock is reportedly planning to enter the video cards market as soon as next month. The company may introduce its own graphics processing unit (GPU) based on AMD chips, according to Techpowerup. These can be used in cryptocurrency mining applications. Radeon processors are considered very efficient at mining some popular cryptocurrencies. The GPUs are mainly utilized in rigs processing transactions for altcoins like ethereum and monero.
If the mining sector maintains its momentum, the company’s earnings per share may return to $0.31 USD in 2018, the Taiwanese Digitimes reported, quoting market observers. Asrock has announced consolidated revenues of over $313 million and net profits of about $16 million for 2017.
Last year the company saw increasing sales of its high-end motherboards. It is also producing low-cost and server motherboards, as well as consumer oriented networking products. In January 2018, Asrock reported 35.05% year-on-year increase of its revenues.
The positive results came after a period of weak performance in 2016, when the company sold under 4 million motherboards. That’s less than half the volume in previous years, Digitimes notes. The 2017 sales are mainly due to increased shipments of mid-range to high-end motherboards, but also strong sales of motherboards used in cryptocurrency mining applications. Asrock diversified its product portfolio, offering IPC and server motherboards, as well. The move was intended to reduce its reliance on the consumer sector.
Is There Any Room in the GPU Market?
The news about Asrock’s plans comes after reports suggesting that major card manufacturers expect decreasing demand from cryptocurrency miners. Several weeks ago Advanced Micro Systems announced intentions to increase production of video cards in response to strong market demand. More recently, however, the company indicated that new crypto market and regulatory risks can affect its GPU sales. Decreasing demand from miners is likely to influence its business decisions this year. Asrock’s possible entry would also affect the supply of AMD processors to other card vendors.
According to some publications, the other leading GPU producer Nvidia has pushed back plans to introduce new video processing units. It has been rumored that the company is going to reveal a new “Turing” graphics card for mining applications. Later, it was reported that no new products would be announced until at least July. On top of that, Turing may eventually be offered as just another gaming GPU. The launch of the next-gen Ampere architecture in the consumer segment may also be postponed. Earlier, Nvidia had asked retailers to limit the number of graphics cards that could be purchased in bulk to ensure gamers get their share.
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