Gigabyte Technology is reportedly ready to unveil its own mainboards aimed at the market where only the pricing matters. In spite of earlier information, the brand-name for the parts will be Axper, not Gigatrend.

Gigabyte Technology is one of the largest mainboard makers on the planet and belongs to the so-called Taiwanese Big Four manufacturers. However, its shipments are usually considerably lower than the number of mainboards supplied by ASUSTeK, MSI or ECS since Gigabyte focuses on higher-end offerings leaving spacious market of entry-level solutions to its competitors. Even though this allows the company to post higher gross-margins and receive more profits from every SKU it sells, more and more customers prefer top-to-bottom product families that include cost-effective, mainstream and high-end solutions and Gigabyte needs to respond to the general trend somehow.

In late January 2004 Gigabyte was rumored to establish a subsidiary called Gigatrend to sell cost-effective products. However, the firm unveiled RZ mainboards in early March to sell entry-level mainboards under its own brand-name. Initially, Gigatrend would outsource production to its parent company. But for the price-conscious entry-level market, Gigatrend would be forced to outsource production of entry-level mainboards to contract manufacturers to lower costs, according to Taiwanese press.

The idea behind Axper may be the same as behind the GigaTrend.

The Axper mainboards will be initially marketed in the Asia-Pacific region starting from mid-May, according to a report from DigiTimes web-site. Later this year, presumably in mid-June, the company will also start selling its Axper products in Europe and the USA, but that is something not officially confirmed.

Shipments of the Axper mainboards are expected to account for about 5% of Gigabyte’s projected 15 million mainboard shipments this year. The proportion may bump up to 20% of all shipments in the future, the report noted.

Representatives from Gigabyte Technology did not comment on the news-story.