 One million devices have been sold so far, Asus’ top exec told WSJ, the PC company behind the hardware, said this week. “At the beginning, it was, for instance, 500K units a month, then maybe 600, 700K. This latest month, it was close to 1 million,” said David Chang, Asus Chief Financial Officer, at the company’s q3 results announcement. Google and Asus jolted the tab world in July with the Nexus 7 – the first 7 inch tablet to sport a powerful quad core processor and 8GB storage for a super cheap $249 – or half the price of an iPad.
Apple since responded with the iPad mini, last week, but couldn’t match good ‘ol Google fiercely competitive pricing, selling its 7 incher for $369, but say its 4G LTE tech makes up for it. Google is now placing an even higher bet on demand for Nexus and treble whammied the tab industry this week, launching a 4″ Nexus smartphone, along with 32GB Nexus 7 version (made by Asus) and a larger 10″ Nexus by Samsung. The Nexus partnership has given Asus tablets a massive boost – tab sales jumped from 800,000 shipments in Q2 to 2.3 million in Q3, almost 50% of which were Nexus. The Taiwanese maker Asus now expects Nexus sales to soar 13 % 2.6 million shipments, and 10 million next year. Asus notebook shipments are hitting 5 million per month, the company also confirmed. |
