Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), innovator of low-cost netbooks, has overtaken Acer Inc (宏碁) in Russia’s notebook market, the company said yesterday.
Asustek also said it was the market leader in motherboards in Russia, with a share of about 60 percent, based on recent research conducted by GfK Institute.
Just last year, the market gap between Acer and Asus was around 10 percent, but Asustek closed in on the ranks this year, said Alexander Gookkin, president of PIRIT Corp, a top Russian information technology retail chain.
Right now, 64 percent of PIRIT’s revenue comes from a suite of 15 Asus products, Gookkin said.
PIRIT is the No. 1 distributor of ASUS merchandise in Russia, he said.
“Despite diminishing consumer demand worldwide, ASUS remains confident about the Russian market. The global financial crisis hasn’t really impacted on average Russians because less than 5 percent of them invest in the stock market,” Alex Kim (金雅仕), managing director of Asustek’s Russian office told reporters at a luncheon yesterday.
“Moreover, Russians nowadays don’t save very much. They enjoy spending every dollar of their hard-earned money,” Kim said.
Asustek sold about 250,000 laptops in the second quarter, representing about a 25 percent share of the Russian notebook market. That figure more than doubled to 550,000 in the third quarter, Kim said.
“These figures do not incorporate EeePC sales because Eee PCs were not introduced until later in the second quarter, and the effectiveness of our extensive sales channels have not yet been fully reflected in these numbers,” Kim said.
Asustek estimates that total notebook sales in Russia will reach 3.5 million to 4 million units this year. Of this lucrative pie, the ambitious computer maker aims to take up 1.3 million by the end of the year, roughly translating to a notebook market share of 30 percent, Kim told reporters.
Aside from standalone sales of notebooks, the company has adopted various marketing strategies to promote bundled sales of its laptops in collaboration with telecommunications operators and carriers, Kim said.
Kim declined to name its partner firms, but said these partnerships span different technologies — including global system for mobile communications, asymmetric digital subscriber line and worldwide interoperability for microwave access — that work with ASUS notebooks.
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