Asustek eyes market-beating unit growth in 2010

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)