Asus, the proud parent of the Eee PC, looks set to buck the current economic storm by shipping its way out of it.
The Taiwanese computer maker is banking on increasing its notebook output by more than three quarters (77 per cent) during 2009 in a bid to satisfy the increasing demand for low-cost laptops.
The Chinese-language Economic Daily reported that the company’s chairman Jonney Shih said he hoped Asus would ship up to 20 million laptops next year, propelling it to become one of the world's top four laptop makers.
Based on previous forecasts, the company is on track to ship 11.3 million notebooks this year, including netbooks, the newspaper said.
Many of the world's top PC makers, including Dell, Acer and NEC, have entered the netbook market and will either launch or have launched their own line of low-cost notebooks.
Indeed, while iSuppli expects the global notebook PC market to grow 20 per cent next year to 155 million units, it has even higher hopes for the netbook segment, with expectation that it’ll grow more than twice as quickly - by 55 per cent - to 13.2 million units