Asus to sell up to two million tablets

Asustek said that the Taiwanese PC builder expects to ship 1.5 to 2 million tablets in 2011 which the firm forecasts will account for 10 per cent of non-iPad tablets in 2011.

The Digitimes reported on an Asus investor conference on Friday, providing insight into 2010 financial performance and targets for the current year. 

Last year the lion’s share of the company’s revenue, 56 per cent, came from notebook PCs in 2010, note including the Eee PC netbook market which Asus accounts for separately. 

The Asus netbook brand Eee was on equal footing with the company’s mainboard business last year, each accounting for 16 per cent of revenue. Europe was the most important region for Asus, accounting for 43 per cent of revenue with Asia close behind on 40 per cent.

North America presumably resides in the 17 per cent ‘others’ figure that Asus provided, showing that the firm has had much less success at conquering the US market.

The 1.5 to 2 million tablet figure is incremental to the business that Asus expects to do this year with the firm setting flat targets for Eee PC netbook shipments in 2011 while setting an aggressive 28 per cent growth target in non-Eee PC notebooks to 14 million in 2010.

To put the tablet noise into perspective, the amount of tablets Asus aims to ship in 2011 is less than 10 per cent of the firm’s notebook and netbook business. 

In January ODM manufacturer Compal forecast that the firm would sell 3.8 million tablets. However the firm also expects notebook shipments to increase 15 per cent which equates to an extra 8.5 million notebooks, up to 55 million.