ASUSTeK Computer and Gigabyte Technology are reported to outsource at least a part of their graphics cards production to rivals Elitegroup Computer Systems and Foxconn Electronics in order to gain pricing flexibility and boost the count of graphics cards shipping to market.

DigiTimes web-site claims that ASUS and Gigabyte will outsource manufacturing of certain graphics cards to Elitegroup Computer Systems and Foxconn Electronics already this month, aiming to increase own-brand products’ market shares as well as get additional pricing flexibility. Both ASUS and Gigabyte earlier said they planned to increase shipments of their graphics cards and both recently started to pin a lot of hopes on entry-level computer components.

ASUSTeK will outsource 300 thousand graphics cards monthly to ECS, while Gigabyte will ask Foxconn to make 80 – 100 thousand of low-cost NVIDIA-based graphics cards per month, according to report.

Both ASUS and Gigabyte recently started to make very cost-effective mainboards, targeting emerging markets, such as China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe. ASUS is also expected to introduce low-cost X-series graphics cards aiming the same regions. It is unclear whether Gigabyte follows the move.

ASUS and Gigabyte had reportedly declined to comment on the news-story.