Asus to sneak into smartphone market

 

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Posted on 20 Aug 2009 at 08:14

Asus will ship only one million of its new smartphones in 2010, as it attempts to find its feet in the market.

The target will give it a share of less than 1% in the fast-growing smartphone market, which research firm Gartner expects will grow to shipments of more than 200 million units next year.

"We're going to focus on getting our products to work first before trying to meet our targets next year," explains Asus chairman Jonney Shih.

The smartphone has been built in partnership with Garmin and promises to push navigation-based features to the forefront, though with the iPhone already offering an inbuilt compass and turn-by-turn navigation apps, it's difficult to see what impact the phones can have.

They will be sold using the Garmin-Asus brand name and run on Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform, at a time when some industry watchers are saying the software is faltering against bigger rivals.

Asus's launch of a smartphone makes it the second major PC firm to begin selling smartphones this year, just months Acer also began selling these feature-jammed devices. The world's number two PC maker Dell is also working with China Unicom to develop a line of mobile devices for the Chinese telecoms operator.

Many analysts say the move toward smartphones is necessary for PC makers as their products become increasingly similar and as they face rapidly thinning profit margins.

"It's going to be extremely difficult for Asustek and other PC makers who are trying to enter the smartphone sector," says Andrew Chang, an analyst at the Daiwa Institute of Research. "They're completely different markets altogether."