Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s sixth-largest PC brand, is aiming to ship 1 million tablets in the third quarter on strong sales of its first model, the Eee Pad Transformer.
It is on track to ship more than 400,000 Transformers in the second quarter, with this year’s shipments likely to exceed earlier forecasts of 2 million, chief financial officer David Chang (張偉明) told reporters on the sidelines of a product launch yesterday.
This month alone, Asustek will ship 300,000 Transformers, which accounts for more than 10 percent of its total sales, chairman Jonney Shih (施崇棠) said earlier this month.
The mood at Asustek is apparently more upbeat than at Acer Inc (宏碁), which has recently slashed its whole-year tablet shipment goal by more than half to between 2.5 million and 3 million.
Acer, the world’s third-largest PC brand, is undergoing an organizational restructuring and it is expecting weaker demand across its product lines.
The firm dismissed chief executive and president Gianfranco Lanci in late March after claims that he had failed to lead the company in the race to win a share of the rapidly emerging tablet and smartphone sectors.
Asustek yesterday launched a notebook with its exterior designed by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou (周杰倫), saying the model would help it boost brand awareness and win market share in China and Southeast Asian nations such as Singapore and Malaysia.
Chang said Asustek gained a 15 percent share of the notebook market in China in the first quarter, up from last year’s average share of 13 percent.
The company’s notebook shipments to China trails Chinese PC giant Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想).
Chang said it is aggressively tapping the booming Chinese market with its goal to increase its share of the market at least 1 percent every year.
“PC demand in China is improving gradually and its revenue contribution to Asustek will be 30 percent in the third quarter, compared with between 20 percent and 25 percent last year,” Macquarie Equities Research said in a research note on Wednesday last week.
That is because Asustek is gaining market share in China’s tier-three to tier-five rural cities, the note said.
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