Should MSI buy out ECS?

[Pink Jazz]

In recent years, both MSI and ECS have been struggling for market share and have been reporting losses, with ASRock now ahead of both in market share.

Despite efforts to improve quality, ECS still suffers from a reputation problem by many hardcore buyers who won't even consider their products.

MSI's reputation has also taken somewhat of a hit, and does not have the reputation of ASUS or Gigabyte, and some even now consider ASRock to be better.

I don't think either company can really survive on their own. As an idea, I think that MSI should buy out ECS. The combined company should operate under the MSI name and management, however, some brands used by ECS (such as the L33T Gaming Series of motherboards) can be retained as a sub-brand of MSI.

So, would anyone here support the idea of MSI buying out ECS?

 

[tcsenter]

Well there has been a lot of consolidation going on the past few years. I recently noticed how few motherboard brands are carried by Newegg now, down to just five or six, from several years ago when there were well over a dozen.

ECS is a brand-arm of a fairly big OEM/ODM manufacturing firm (a group of companies, really) that contract manufactures or jointly-designs stuff for other companies. Sorta like Foxconn but not nearly as big. It has at times made boards for companies like ASUS, ASRock, and ABIT. You can occasionally open a BIOS ROM file with text/hex editor and find reference to ECS or EliteGroup in there.

 

[Leyawiin]

MSI is considerably larger than Gigabyte or ASRock with a bigger product line. To say it can't survive on its own is kind of silly. As was said ECS is larger than just its motherboard line - it makes Acer products as well.

 

[Burpo]

Agree with "silly".. They're both large enough & doing well enough to survive on their own. Both have nice products this yr.

 

[jihe]

ECS is in the OEM business, it doesn't really care about the hardcore buyers.

 

[Shivansps]

Personally im more worried about biostar, they used to do some good price/features motherboards, now Asrock seems to have taken that place.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Mergers make sense if you have patent portfolios that are complimentary, or some kinds of expertise (best sales department, best marketing culture, etc.) that would work better together. (I loathe the term "synergy" but it fits.)

So what are the synergies? If you want somebody's market share, you just compete until you or the competition drops out. Numerous motherboard manufacturers have folded in the last couple decades, or dropped out of certain markets.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Major hardware players like GIGABYTE and Asustek have shipped 17 million self-branded motherboards in 2015, down 10% from last year and lower than annual sales forecasts. Both companies originally planned to move 20 million motherboards in 2015, but that projection was scaled down to 18 million in light of early-year earnings reports. Despite the sales slump, ASUS saw impressive sales in November with an month-over-month revenue increase of 21%. GIGABYTE, on the other hand, saw a dip in revenue with an on year sales drop of 13.6% during the same period.

While the sales slump isn't expected to crush either tech titan, smaller-scale companies won't be so lucky. Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), MSI and Biostar are getting hit by the dip, and Chinese motherboard supplier Onda is expected to pull out of the market completely in 2016.

Intel's new Skylake processors were expected to surge demand of top-tier motherboards, but ultimately failed to get the targeted demand. The real problem is that most PC users already have competent rigs and don't have any reason to switch over to Skylake, or pick up a new expensive board. A good chunk of PC gamers are content with their older builds that provide just as much price-per-dollar performance than newer hardware. Sure newer motherboards offer the M.2 form factor and DDR4 RAM upgrades, however this tech is still new, meaning it's quite expensive. Taking all these points into consideration, it makes sense why the motherboard market is taking a hit. Most users just aren't ready to jump in yet.

Users might be more open to upgrading next year, however supply sources claim that motherboard sales will drop another 10% in 2016, further impacting the market. Source.

Well... Skylake wasn't good enough to make me move from Haswell. What can I do about it, Intel? Try harder next time

DDR4 RAM upgrades, however this tech is still new, meaning it's quite expensive

Not just that. If I were to buy DDR4, I would of wanted decent 16gb modules as well. 2x16 > 4x8, unless you need quad channel.

Personally im more worried about biostar, they used to do some good price/features motherboards, now Asrock seems to have taken that place.

Yeah, Biostar was nice. They always had interesting features, added value, etc. AFAIK, they are still in business, NE lists a dozen of their boards, or so.

 

[ElFenix]

Well there has been a lot of consolidation going on the past few years. I recently noticed how few motherboard brands are carried by Newegg now, down to just five or six, from several years ago when there were well over a dozen.

ECS is a brand-arm of a fairly big OEM/ODM manufacturing firm (a group of companies, really) that contract manufactures or jointly-designs stuff for other companies. Sorta like Foxconn but not nearly as big. It has at times made boards for companies like ASUS, ASRock, and ABIT. You can occasionally open a BIOS ROM file with text/hex editor and find reference to ECS or EliteGroup in there.

:wub:

*sigh*

 

[Magic Carpet]

Yeah, Abit was awesome. Especially, their advanced total fan control, for its time :thumbsup:

Still keeping this board, for occasional benchmarking to go along with my Athlon 64 X2 4200+ cpu. Even got a custom bios in it, for some extra overclocking

 

[lehtv]

MSI is considerably larger than Gigabyte or ASRock with a bigger product line. To say it can't survive on its own is kind of silly. As was said ECS is larger than just its motherboard line - it makes Acer products as well.

ECS is in the OEM business, it doesn't really care about the hardcore buyers.

Another company could still buy their consumer product division.

 

[aigomorla]

MSI's reputation has also taken somewhat of a hit, and does not have the reputation of ASUS or Gigabyte, and some even now consider ASRock to be better.

*face palm*

ASUS owned ASRock, spun ASRock to compete against the OEM market, and on top ASRock still makes boards for ASUS.

:\

It has at times made boards for companies like ASUS, ASRock, and ABIT. You can occasionally open a BIOS ROM file with text/hex editor and find reference to ECS or EliteGroup in there.

no... Asus yes, but not ASrock.
Asus got tired at all the OEM providers like foxconn, and spun ASRock to handle the OEM needs of ASUS.

Then ASRock itself got really big as it was doing all the other oem stuff for ASUS like monitors / Laptops / Tablets.

ASrock is owned by pegatron, which ASuS has a good control of.
Also the key people of ASuS are either chairman of Pegatron or ASrock.


MSI buying ECS is actually not a bad idea for MSI.
It would give them a OEM attachment.

 

[tcsenter]

no... Asus yes, but not ASrock.
Asus got tired at all the OEM providers like foxconn, and spun ASRock to handle the OEM needs of ASUS.

The first several models marketed by ASRock were clones or made by PC Chips (a.k.a. ECS). e.g. M810LMR

AMPTRON was ASRock's first authorized distributor in USA. APMTRON was quite well known to only market rebranded ECS and PC CHIPS boards. It's too bad that PC Chips website no longer is operational else I could show you more PC Chips/ECS models that ASRock branded.

MSI buying ECS is actually not a bad idea for MSI. It would give them a OEM attachment.

MSI already produces motherboards for the major OEMs for years now (HP, Compaq, eMachines, Gateway, Fujitsu, et. al.)