Apple iPad makes Asus lower netbook outlook

Taiwanese manufacturer Asus (Asustek Computer) experienced a drop in sales of its Eee PC netbooks in the second quarter of the year.

The company has cited the competition from Apple iPad behind the lowered outlook for third quarter, according to a Digitimes report. The re-adjusted sales outlook for the traditional peak sales period(third quarter) has been lowered to to 1.4 million units.

Asustek will continue to offer Eee PCs and will step into the tablet PC segment with its Eee Note and Eee Pad series.

A 10-inch Eee tablet based on the Intel Atom N550 is due for launch around September; while an 8.9-inch ARM-powered tablet running Linux is due in October (Price $300-400 range).

A 12-inch Intel Arrandale Windows 7 tablet will be launched in the December to January time frame (priced $1,000).

According to Asus, a 10-inch Eee Pad tablet PC based on ARM and the Nvidia Tegra platform and running the Android operating system will be released in March 2011(Price $300-400 range).

Notably, Asus was largely responsible for creating the netbook category, with the introduction of the Eee PC. A category that has many competitors now, including Apple iPad. --------

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