The company sells about a dozen Vivo PC and ROG Series gaming desktops on its site, but the majority of its PC sales have shifted to the more lucrative notebook department in recent years. In the fourth quarter of 2016, the company shipped 5.45 million PCs in total, representing 7.5 percent of the total market. However, this number was still down from 5.96 million PCs a year earlier in Q4 2015.
In 2016, the company shipped an estimated 18 million notebooks, down from 19 million in 2015 and 20.3 million in 2014. Despite the sales drop, however, the company’s profits managed to stabilize over the past two years and some market watchers have noted this to be a sign of effective strategy.
During CES, the company held a Zennovation product event that showcased a new all-aluminum Deluxe version of the 13-inch ZenBook 3 (UX490UA), a 12.9mm slim notebook with a 7th-gen Intel Kaby Lake processor, 16GB of LPDDR3, and dual Thunderbolt 3 ports. It also debuted the ASUS Pro B9440, the world’s lightest 14-inch business notebook at just 1kg (2.20lbs) in an ultra-compact design.
In its latest sales forecast, Gartner says it is critical for companies like ASUS, Lenovo, HP and Dell to maintain a strong position in the business market in order to keep sustainable growth in the PC market. “Winners in the business segment will ultimately be the survivors in this shrinking market. Vendors who do not have a strong presence in the business market will encounter major problems, and they will be forced to exit the PC market in the next five years.”
ASUS is a company that has achieved progress in the consumer sector, but still faces uphill battles in the enterprise market against its the top-three competitors mentioned above. The company sells a variety of workstations and server-related products based on Intel C200 series chipsets and currently has plans to land procurement orders in China and Taiwan.
The company’s smartphone sales have also been down in recent months, dropping to an estimated 20 million units in 2016 due to delayed shipments and lower-than-expected sales in China, the US, and Europe. Recently, it has announced a goal of doubling its sales forecast to 40 million units for 2017.
