Asustek has decided to slash its motherboard production volume from 5-6 million units each quarter previously to only 3-3.5 million units in the first quarter of 2012.

According to Digitimes the outfit has pots of boards from the fourth quarter of 2011 which no one has bought yet. The news comes from upstream component makers and Asustek would not confirm the rumours. It seems that Asustek has a million motherboards left over from the fourth quarter.  It does not have to worry about stuffing up the company's sales target of the first quarter of 2012, but its  upstream component partners are a bit miffed.

Asustek's production cut has also affected its chipset orders to CPU makers. Chipset orders to Intel in the quarter dropped 2.5-2.8 million units with orders to AMD dropped 500,000-700,000 units. Asustek was a little unusual because while the other motherboard players cut back on inventory during the last quarter as demand fell  Asustek carried on producing boards. This stocked up its inventory level ad will mean that other motherboard players are expected to enjoy on-quarter shipment growths from 5-10 percent in the first quarter.