Asus makes fewer tablets and will focus more on virtual and augmented reality

Asus will release fewer different tablets and sell them in fewer countries. Some of the thousand employees who work on tablets will be transferred to the business units that work on VR, AR and smartphones.

The changes were announced by Asus CEO Jerry Shen, Digitimes writes. The Taiwanese company has already started implementing the changes in mid-2016 and should be completed by the middle of this year. The market for tablets has been declining for years. At Asus, deliveries decreased from 12.1 million units in 2013 to 3.3 million units in 2016.

Last year, Asus released several new models in the Benelux, including the ZenPad 10 and 3S 10 and the ZenPad 8.0 and 3S 8.0. This year, Asus focuses on mid-range and high-end tablets, with prices above 10,000 Taiwan dollars. Converted that is more than 300 euros. The brand wants to sell more than three million of these types of tablets. The tablet division should be profitable again in the third quarter.

Instead of tablets, Asus will focus more on the development of smartphones and products for virtual and augmented reality. At the CES fair early this year, the manufacturer announced its ZenFone AR phone with Google Tango technology. At the presentation of the quarterly figures, the company announced last week that a stand-alone VR headset will be released at the end of this year.