Asus – the quest for excellence and innovation continues

AsusTek (or simply Asus) is the #1 international brand from Taiwan and it has been enjoying this position for the last 4 years. The company has been named the most admired company for 2 consecutive years, and has retained the position of the #1 motherboard and graphics card makers in the world. It is passionate about technology and is driven by innovation. The company is always in search of incredible ideas and experiences and aspires to be incredible in everything it does. 

Founded     :    April, 1989
Type           :    Public listed company 
Traded as    :    TWSE: 2357/  LSE: ASKD (Secondary)
Headquarters     :    Taipei, Taiwan
Industry            :    Computer hardware and electronics company
No of Offices     :    58
Employees       :    About 17,000+ (R&D = 5,500)
 

Obsessed about innovation, Asus has in its offerings a number of interesting and innovative products.  In the smartphone category, the Zenfone series has been quite great which was founded in 2014. In fact it is one of the top selling smartphone brands in South-East Asia, Japan and Taiwan. Asus sees itself well prepared for the computing era, where in the next 5 - 10 years the company’s leadership sees covering personal computing, mobile computing, IoT computing and robotic computing on a large scale. And this would not be possible without the great leadership at Asus.

Apart from hardware, Asus has got a very big investment in the area of software. Asus Cloud is one of its subsidiaries; users around the world know them for the web storage service on the Asus devices. Taipei city government also has a very close collaboration with Asus Cloud to provide free web storage to all the citizens from the city. 

A Big Focus on Gaming...
We all understand that in spite of the PC industry slowing down worldwide, the gaming industry has grown into a billion dollar business. There is a lot of potential to earn profits – both in the segments of gaming hardware and software. The gaming hardware market in 2016 alone had hit $30 billion globally; the growth has been however in the higher segment. The high-end purpose built PCs is where PC gaming vendors are putting their focus on for profitability. This drives home the point that gaming devices might be niche but gamers are not. 

Additionally, apps are driving the gaming industry at a faster pace than what was envisaged a few years back. The E-Sports phenomenon is also gaining momentum, if not in all the markets, but in a few of the markets globally. In 2016 alone, there were alone 148M viewers for e-sports, which will go up to 215 million in 2019. In terms of revenues, we are seeing a huge potential evolving around e-sports as it proves to be an ideal platform to reach out to young millennials who are active in the social space and are technology conscious. In 2016, e-sports was a $493 Million business, and is projected to go up to $1.1 billion business by 2019.   

ROG (Republic of Gamers) is a gaming sub-brand of Asus that has been around for 10 years. Founded in 2006, it tries to give the best experience to the customers and build the future gaming landscape. Asus launched its first ROG products in 2006. The idea is to deliver the most innovative hardcore gaming hardware and solutions to offer an ultimate gaming experience to truly dedicated gamers worldwide. Since it saw this segment as something unique, Asus decided to operate it separately as a sub-brand. Today it has the most complete portfolio to cater to the gaming segment. Under the sub-brand, Asus has a huge product line-up of gaming products like gaming motherboards, gaming graphic cards, gaming monitor, gaming laptop and so on. It plans to incorporate more products to this portfolio. 

ROG plays an active part in the global gaming community, helping develop the industry by sponsoring events such as PAX, BlizzCon and Dreamhack. ROG has also been recognized as a leader in PC gaming, winning many awards.

In India, the latest product to be launched in the market is the ROG Strix GL553 compact ultra-light gaming laptop. With its new ROG series launch, Asus has tried its best to cater to the demands of all the gaming segments i.e. from entry and mainstream levels to professional gaming. 
It has always been Asus’s endeavour to provide the best gaming experience to the users and ultimately help the gaming industry in India and the worldwide to thrive. 

Samrita Baruah
samrita@varindia.com