Asustek shifts focus to high-end handsets

Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) expects the average selling price for its own-brand handsets to increase more than 40 percent next year following the company's shift to the high-end niche market, a company executive said yesterday.

Asustek, the world's biggest computer motherboard maker, also makes brand-name notebook computers and consumer electronics products and gadgets such as mobile handsets and liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TV in the Asia-Pacific region.

Some three years ago, Asustek diversified into mobile phones, targeting the middle-range market, that is, handsets retailing at around NT$5,000.

"We've changed our strategy as the competition is fierce in the [middle-end] segment," said Benson Lin (林宗樑), general manager of Asustek's Asia Pacific division.

Sales of mobile phones in Taiwan are expected to rise to 7.3 million units this year, up almost 10 percent from 6.68 million units last year, according to Taipei-based market researcher Market Intelligence Center (市場情報中心).

"We will be concentrating on niche products. Next year, our focus will be personal digital assistant (PDA) phones," Lin said.

Although shipments next year are expected to remain flat compared with last year at 300,000 units, the average selling price is forecast to rise to more than NT$10,000 next year, from NT$6,000 to NT$7,000 this year, Lin said.

Early this month, Asustek launched a PDA phone, which is equipped with popular functions such as global positioning system (GPS), and priced at NT$23,900.

"We are aiming to boost profits rather than shipment volume," Lin said.

Lin said Asustek hoped to become the largest PDA phone vendor in the Asia-Pacific area, taking on Dopod International Corp (多普達) in the next few years.

Dopod sells own-brand PDA phones made by parent High Tech Computer Corp (宏達電), the world's biggest maker of handsets running on Microsoft Corp's operating system.

Asustek plans to unveil 12 third-generation (3G) phones/feature phones and three PDA phones next year.

The company introduced 12 new cellphone models this year.

The company has set a revenue target of NT$750 billion next year. That would represent 36 percent growth from estimated revenues of NT$550 billion this year, Lin said.

The Asia-Pacific division only makes a small portion of the company's overall revenues, Lin said.

Asustek's shares rose 0.68 percent to NT$89.1 yesterday, underperforming the Taiwan Stock Exchange index's 1.14 percent gain.