Asustek aiming for strong brand notebook business; to launch second-generation Eee PC in April 2008

From Digitimes Wednesday 5 September 2007 -

Asustek Computer aims to become one of the top five suppliers in the notebook brand market within three years. The company is currently ranked eighth or ninth place in the global notebook market.

The brand business accounted for 36% of Asustek's overall sales in the second quarter, compared to 23% in the first quarter of 2007. Brand business contribution will maintain at 30%-50% in the third quarter with the Eee PC to become a focus for its brand business.

Apart from the ultra low-cost notebook, the company is not ruling out the possibility of introducing a second brand for its low-end notebook products in the future.

The company plans to ship 200,000-300,000 Eee PCs by the end of this year and annual shipments for next year will grow to more than three million units at least.

While the supply of CPUs, chipsets, flash memory and DRAM are sufficient at present, Asustek is facing pressure from LCD panel and battery shortages.

The first batch of Eee PCs, which will hit the market in the second half of September, will feature a 4GB solid state disk (SSD) and 512MB memory.

The company plans to introduce second-generation Eee PCs in April 2008 which will feature Intel's Merom processors. The power consumption of the next-generation notebooks will reduce to 7W TDP, down from 11W TDP, said the company, adding that it may remove the fan to save more power and reduce noise.

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That's perfect! Now I can stop waiting for the 1st gen Eee to come out this month. Or will it be next month? Or Christmas? Hmmm. I know, maybe Asus will release the 1st gen Eee PC in April 2008, simultaneously with the 2nd gen. That way us consumers can have more to choose from. :)