Asustek and Gigabyte are apparently stuck with a few million Intel 4-series chipsets and the overstock is reportedly massive.
Demand for 4-series chipsets is slowing down, as their successors are just around the corner, and the economic slowdown has also messed up some of vendors' plans. Digitimes reports low-cost PCs are also to blame for the drop in demand.
Taiwanese first-tier motherboard manufacturers reportedly ordered excessive amounts of 4-series chipsets in an effort to appease Intel, retain supply priority or get price discounts. Unfortunately their cunning plan backfired and Asustek currently has an inventory of 6-7 million units, valued at NT$6 billion or US$180.57 million. Gigabyte is also stuck with NT$4-5 billion of Intel chipsets.
Apparently Asus got the chipsets along with Atom CPUs in order to get a better price and supply priority for Atom CPUs which were in short supply in mid-2008.
Motherboard makers are hoping Intel will delay its next gen chipsets and give them some extra time to get rid of their stock, but Intel seems to be on track for a Q2 launch of 5-series chipsets.
Both Intel and the mobo makers are refusing to comment the issue.
More here.