The past:
ASUS was founded by T.H. Tung, Ted Hsu,
Wayne Tsiah and M.T. Liao in April 1989.
The bumpy ride from Acer to ASUS
The bumpy ride from Acer to ASUS
"Let me tell you the real
story," the 62-year-old chairman said, while pouring some Chinese tea.
"At the beginning, those four engineers were my engineers, and we were
with Acer, and I had been in charge of Acer's R&D for quite a long time (12
years). One time, at a cafeteria, we dreamed about how to start up a small but
beautiful company. They all elected me to lead them."
The present: Today's ASUS is over 13,800 people strong, around 6,000 of whom are based in Taiwan. Even though the company now offers a broad range of products including laptops, tablets, all-in-ones, smartphones, graphics cards, routers and more, it is still very active in the motherboard market. In fact, at the beginning of this year, ASUS sold its 500 millionth motherboard.
In Shih's opinion, the ZenFone 2 is a good example of design thinking. It's very affordable, but still packs an impressive punch in the specs department. Plus it looks and feels solid, even if it sticks to plastic for the body. The numbers reflect some success in certain regions. According to research firm BCN, ASUS topped Japan's SIM-free smartphone market with a 29.6 percent market share in the first half of 2015. Specifically, the ZenFone 2 ranked number three in July, which was already its second month in the country. On the other side of the world, the ZenFone 2 is listed as the top and second best seller on Amazon in Italy and the US, respectively, at the time of publication (Amazon updates its list hourly). Looking ahead, the company expects to ship 25 million smartphones this year, though Shih wouldn't confirm whether the upcoming high-end PadFone refresh would fall into this window.
But can ASUS fend off other aggressive smartphone brands such as Xiaomi, OnePlus and Huawei? Shih said it's inevitable that consumers will be drawn to the best blend of price and performance, and his company has to go with the mobile trend or else risk becoming irrelevant. The least his team could do is to follow the old wisdom and focus on customer happiness.
The future: big data and robotics.
ASUS ... in search of incredible
