The fierce price competition between Asustek Computer and Gigabyte Technology has recently expanded to Europe as demand in China is falling short of expectations and is putting strong pressure on ASRock and Micro-Star International (MSI), which have a large proportion of their shipments coming from Europe, according to sources from motherboard players.

With overall motherboard demand dropping and Asustek and Gigabyte still expected to ship over 20 million units in 2014, small players, which are not able to survive the price war, are expected to be eliminated from the market reports digitimes.

Since the top-two players have been expanding their presence in the motherboard market, other players' gaps with the top-two are expanding quickly. To avoid fierce competition in China, many players have chosen to focus on markets such as Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe.

Asustek, which has strong brand recognition in Europe, has been offering attractive prices for its Intel Z97, X79, Z87 and H81 as well as AMD A88, A78 and A58 motherboards.

Motherboard price war reaches Europe