Asustek Computer is expected to post a first quarter revenue decline of 16 per cent from the 2015 fourth quarter, totalling about the same year-on-year, according to market watchers, Digitimes has reported.
| Operating margins will maintain at 4.5 per cent, according to market watchers, Digitimes reported.
Asus is expected to ship 4.8 million notebooks in the first quarter, down from the 2015 fourth quarter’s 5.4 million units, remaining flat year-on-year, according to the report, better than an industry average 10 per cent decline. In January, Gartner found that worldwide PC shipments as a whole totalled 75.7 million units for the 2015 fourth quarter, an 8.3 per cent year-on-year decline, while the International Data Corporation found that shipments totalled 71.9 million units, a year-on-year decline of 10.6 per cent. Gartner’s outlook for PC shipments this year is for a decline of 1 per cent compared with 2015, with the potential for a soft recovery in late 2016. As reported by Digitimes, Asus CEO Jerry Shen has noted that the company is aiming to ship 22-24 million PCs this year, of which notebooks will comprise 20 million units, up from 19.3 million last year. Asus has recently delayed the launch of a new 2-in-1 device, with a design similar to Microsoft’s Surface Pro, to the end of June, looking to further improve its design, Digitimes reported. As for smartphone shipments, Asus expects first quarter shipments of around four million units, down from 6.5 million units in the previous quarter, however up from three million units year-on-year, Digitimes reported. Digitimes additionally reported that Asus is also looking to combine its smartphones with outside virtual reality/augmented reality devices, while evaluating plans to develop in-house virtual reality devices. Asus has teamed up with Oculus to produce “Oculus Ready PCs”, which have recently gone on pre-order. |
