iPad crashes Windows 8 launch party as Asus cuts its PC, tablet forecasts by 10%

More bad new for Microsoft's Windows 8: Asus, one of the few PC makers to experience any growth last year, is now lowering its forecasts for June quarter PC and tablet sales in the face of slack demand for computers with the appearance of Windows Phone.

Source: Asus

Gartner and IDC both rank Taiwan's Asus as the fifth largest PC maker globally (because neither group counts iPad sales). However, Asus' growth streak from last year ground to a halt with the rest of the industry in the first quarter of 2013.

After warning investors in early May that it expected to ship fewer notebooks and tablets in the June quarter (citing plans for 4.8 million notebooks and 2.8 million tablets), the company has now revised its estimates again, cutting its shipment expectations for both categories by 10 percent over the previous quarter. A report by Focus Taiwan says Asus now plans to sell 4.23 million notebooks and 2.7 million tablets.

Asus climbed into the spotlight in 2007 when it released the Eee PC netbook line. In 2010, it spun off Pegatron (an OEM formerly used by Apple to build MacBooks, and rumored to building a new line of low cost iPhones) just as the iPad began selling in quantities that began destroying demand for netbooks.

Asus chairman Jonney Shih, who apparently styles himself as a sort of Steve Jobs, initially launched a hybrid "Padfone" in an oddly dramatic unveiling in 2011. When sales didn't exactly catch on, the company, along with the rest of the PC market, turned to Microsoft's Windows 8 to boost sales of PCs and tablets.

In addition to Windows 8 PCs, which have failed to take the market by storm, Asus also makes the Nexus 7 tablet for Google. To cover all the bases, Asus recently announced its "Transformer Book Trio," which pairs a Windows 8 notebook with an 11.6 inch display that doubles as an Android tablet.

Last year, reviewers noted that "Google apps run better on the iPad Mini than the Nexus 7," despite CNET's report that its own "reader poll" favored the Nexus 7 over the iPad mini by a significant margin.

Consumers voting with their actual dollars have sided with iPads however. In November, Apple sold 3 million new iPad 4 and iPad mini units in its first weekend of sales, and last quarter, Apple sold 19.5 million iPads in its March quarter, up dramatically from 11.8 million in the year ago quarter.

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35 Comments

apple ][ 9225 comments · 13 Years

About 11 years ago

Great news for all Apple fans and stockholders today!

Never again will anybody ever again have to read an article on here or at any other place based on Doug Kass's tweets, because he has quit Twitter as of today.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/06/17/doug-kass-splits-with-twitter/

mhikl 471 comments · 13 Years

" . . . Asus, one of the few PC makers to experience any growth last year, is now lowering its forecasts for June quarter . . ."

First Apple doesn't meet forecasters' prognostications, then Facsimile Sam and now, Jeepers Creepers Asus ?, then ??, then ???

My, there seems to be a trend. Whatever is going to happen to stock values in Tech? Will Google feel the wrath of the great fortune tellers with the gentle flush of Android sales? This soap opera is one tight story.

drblank 3384 comments · 18 Years

is this a comedy club act?

penguinisto 55 comments · 11 Years

I can name this tune in one note... While the tech-oriented folks can (if they're MS-oriented as well) make excuses for Windows 8, and even hold their breath while using it? Joe Sixpack ain't buying it. After watching my missus' reaction to Best Buy's sales-critters when they told her that they won't sell her a new laptop with Windows 7 on it, I knew then and there that Windows 8 was more-or-less a Vista-scale failure, and likely worse. (...now why Best Buy won't do an upcharge install thingy with Geek Squad and park Windows 7 on a new laptop? Dunno, but the missus was ready to drop $1k on a new laptop at that store, and said as much. They lost that money, and the Mac Store down the street got ~$700 of it instead as she realized an iPad keyboard does everything she ever wants to do with a computer. Me? I was told by her to keep out of it, so I just watched with smug satisfaction as the last Windows user in my household stopped using Windows, and my tech repair time dropped to nearly zero.) Just as a rough guess? Little wonder the consumer desk/laptop market hit the floor. On the enterprise side, they're (as a whole) just about to finish their XP-> Win7 upgrades, so there's not much action left for growth there. I'm just sitting back waiting for next year, just to see what Microsoft's excuses will be as more OEMs start pointing the finger of blame at Redmond.

colper 7 comments · 11 Years

I think the decrease in PC sales has something to do with the lifespan of new computers. When I would buy a computer every 3 years I can now go 5-7 years without needing to upgrade. But this is just my own personal theory of course.