Taiwanese Personal Computer ( PC) and tablet maker, ASUS has moved into third spot of worldwide tablets sales in the first quarter of 2013, according to research firm, IDC. This puts Asus in third place, behind Samsung and Apple in tablet market share.The company shipped 2.7 million units compared to just over 700,000 units in the same period last year thanks to its Android based Nexus 7 which has achieved over 5 million in sales. Industry analyst say this move was helped in part by Android being the most favoured operating system (OS) amongst consumers with 27.8 million units shipped.
The growing appetite for tablets, according to the analysts has also been a critical factor with the market growing 142 percent year over year in the last three months. ASUS jumped to third position beating out Amazon the makers of the kindle fire and grabbing a 5.5 percent market share. This is an impressive performance by the motherboard manufacturer despite a slowdown in shipped devices. The industry sold 49.2 million units in the last quarter compared to 52.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012. The Information Technology (IT) company that practically invented the netbook space is now one of the major players in the tablet space.
Asus says it moved 3 million tablets in the first quarter of 2013, and research firm IDC. Of course, third place doesn’t mean much when Apple still has almost 40 percent of the market to itself. IDC says Asus has just a 5.5 percent share of the tablet market. If Asus CEO Jerry Shen is right though, things could change this year with Windows 8 tablet prices falling to $300 or less. Asus earlier this month released the Fonepad, the first android tablet that runs the new Intel processor and is a budget friendly option in the market.
Built upon the successes of the ASUS 7” android tablet range, Fonepad brings real voice capabilities to a tablet, incorporating all phone and tablet functions into a single device. Asus plans to continue growing its market share in the future by providing a wide range of tablet devices that appeal to diverse consumer needs.
