Asus boss reveals Eee sales figures

And promises "cool" new products for 2009

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21 October 2008 12:02 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Asus boss Jerry Shen has revealed sales figures for the company's Eee range - and hinted at some exciting developments to be announced at CES in January.

Talking to Laptop Magazine as the Eee brand celebrates its year anniversary, Shen discussed whether Asus had expected the arguably immediate level of success the first little laptop enjoyed.

"When we launched the product last October, we saw immediately how popular it was and how well it sold. At the end of that year, I set a goal to sell five million by the end of 2008."

"So, for that first year, it went well beyond our expectations, but I hoped that this year would be very successful and we are on the right track. We knew that we would see competitors in the market and like Intel, we see this netbook market to be one of the largest areas of mobility in the future."

When pressed on sales figures, Shen revealed that Asus should hit that five million target before the end of 2008.

Shen said: "Being that our goal is for this year is five million, we are confident that we will hit that. We are pretty close to four million now. The competition has really been OK and hasn’t set us off our goals."

The five million tally does not include the other Eee branded products, such as the Eee Box that apparently has a sales goal of "few couple hundred thousand".

On the future for the Eee range, Shen stated: "We will provide more exciting products next year and the price range will be from $250 to $700. We will announce a model in Q1 and in Q2 of 2009. They are exciting and in my definition they are cool and the industrial design is stylish".