ASUS won't fight iPad on price, Transformer 2 to cost $499
updated 11:50 pm EDT, Mon October 3, 2011
ASUS won't try to compete in tablets on price
ASUS won't follow price cuts from HTC and from RIM to try and compete in the tablet market, CEO Jerry Shen commented Monday. He had no immediate plans to officially slash the price of the current Eee Pad Transformer, according to Digitimes. The upcoming Transformer 2 would come in at a higher price than the original at $499, Shen said.
In spite of losing the price advantage over Apple, the executive was confident ASUS would stand on the "same ground" as the iPad. Ice Cream Sandwich would help improve Android's performance in tablets this fall. He maintained that ASUS was still enjoying successful results and was on track to ship 1.5 million to two million tablets for all of 2011.
The Taiwan-area company expected one of its biggest threats to come from the Amazon Kindle Fire, not full-fledged Android 3 tablets. Internal estimates had already put the Kindle Fire at 20 to 30 percent of the category. ASUS wasn't immediately under threat as it, like Apple, thought 10-inch tablets defined the heart of the market.
Talk of refusing to bend on price isn't entirely true as the Transformer started at $399 and dropped to $350 in August during sales. The firm has still been one of the few non-Apple tablet designers to buck trends of falling sales and is already outpacing Motorola and RIM.
TAGS :
Amazon, gadgets, ASUS, Android, BlackBerry, Motorola, RIM, Apple, Eee Pad, iPad, PlayBook, Ice Cream Sandwich, Kindle Fire
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: May 2004
Nationalism counts for something
"The firm has still been one of the few non-Apple tablet designers to buck trends of falling sales and is already outpacing Motorola and RIM."
Home field is a special place for national leader firms. Samsung owns Korea, Asus owns Taiwan. RIM has a larger slice of Canada, but nobody cares for Motorola. Apple owns the rest of the first world.