Asus Eee PC Set to Become Second Largest Revenue Source for Asus

X-Bit Labs is reporting that Asus expects to sell 300,000 Eee PCs in January 2008 alone and about 1,000,000 for the first three months of 2008. For the whole year, it expects to sell about 5,000,000. In fact, Asus projects the Eee PC will become its second most significant revenue source by next year, next only to its motherboard line.

Asus has been very optimistic with the sales of its Eee PC so far with the first months of sales being relatively successful. It expects to capture 20% of the world’s PC market in 2010 with the Eee PC line.

Asus is also the world's largest manufacturer of computer motherboards but will be soon be spinning off its contract manufacturing businesses into separate units. It is thus expected to maximizing its revenues with popular Asus-branded products such as the Eee PC. Assuming it hits the 5 million sales mark, Asus's revenue for the Eee PC alone (at an average USD250 per unit out of the retail prices of USD299 to USD499) will reach USD1.5 billion. In comparison, total brand business revenue for 2007 is projected to hit USD7.6 million only.

Surprisingly, after providing the figures, the same article ends with the statement "But given that Asus Eee PC now has relatively low-performance hardware amid simplistic operating system, its success is not inevitable even despite of the low price...if Asustek decides to go on only with Linux OS, its Eee PC will hardly become really popular due to tepid acceptance of Linux among general public."

Why do I get a feeling the writer, Anton Shilov, most likely have never touched, much less used, an Asus Eee PC? :)