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Asus is reorganizing its mobile business to focus mainly on gamers and 'power users'
Never one to settle for blindly following mobile industry trends and simply doing what everyone else was doing, Asus showed plenty of initiative over the years with original and sometimes eccentric products like the PadFone family, Fonepad, ZenFone Zoom, ZenFone AR, and most recently, the ROG Phone.
But experimentation doesn’t always equal innovation. Or at least not the kind of innovation that the smartphone-consuming masses are interested in. As such, the company, which was the world’s fifth-largest PC vendor in 2017, never could crack the global mobile device market. Not really.
While the time hasn’t come for Asus to throw in the towel, a badly needed shift in strategy will take place soon, according to Digitimes, with a primary focus reoriented on mobile gamers and power users.
In other words, the Asus ROG Phone experiment has been successful, with more such devices likely to come soon, possibly alongside mainstream high-end models like the ZenFone 5Z.
First things first, the Taiwan-based tech giant is parting ways with Jerry Shen, its charismatic CEO of almost 11 years, whose current duties will be shared by SY Hsu and Samson Hu. The PC business head and global customer service lead are to adopt co-CEO positions starting January 1, 2019, as reported by Engadget.
The same publication quotes Asus chairman Jonney Shih as describing the smartphone market as a “bloody battlefield” in a Business Next interview, which... sounds about right.
Before going out on said battlefield and trying to thrive survive, Asus needs to wipe the financial slate clean, declaring a one-time expense of over $200 million to cover “losses from inventory, amortization of advance royalties and costs” from the upcoming mobile business reorganization.
That’s definitely painful to hear, but we’re also curious to see what’s next for the creators of some of the best budget-friendly big-battery phones out there. Technically, the likes of the ZenFone Max Plus M1 and ZenFone Max Pro M2 are not targeted at hardcore gamers and power users, though, so there’s a good chance this “reorganization” will see all sequel hopes get crushed.
