Asustek eyes market-beating unit growth in 2010

23 October 2009 @ 12:11 pm EDT

Netbook PC pioneer Asustek aims for its notebook PC shipments to grow faster than the overall industry in 2010, its CEO Jerry Shen said on Friday, with tech demand returning as the global economy recovers.

A woman walks past an Asus Eee PC S101 poster during a media launch in Taipei October 7, 2008. Taiwan's Asustek Computer, the world's top motherboard maker, said on Tuesday its notebook PC shipments could hit a monthly record of 800,000 in October, heading into the important holiday shopping season.

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Microsoft's launch of its new Windows 7 operating system will also help spur a hardware renewal cycle, Shen told reporters, driving up sales as both consumers and companies look to replace their PCs.

"IDC and Gartner are forecasting sales of about 30 percent this year, and we hope we'll be able to beat that," Shen said on the sidelines of a Windows 7 launch event.

"We have set ourselves a target of becoming one of the world's top three notebook PC makers by 2011."

The Taiwan company had forecast in September that it will ship about 11-13 million laptop PC units this year.

Asustek pioneered the low-cost netbook PC, a low-power computer optimised for web activities, in 2007, with bigger rivals such as HP, Dell and Acer also launching their own lines since then.

Asustek shares were up 1.22 percent on Friday, beating the 0.5 percent advance on the benchmark TAIEX share index .

(Reporting by Kelvin Soh, Editing by Jacqueline Wong)