IFA 2013 has pretty much come to a close, and what a week it’s been. Both Samsung and Sony came to the show strong but, so too did ASUS. Slipping under the radar a little bit, ASUS announced a refresh of their tablet line-up. With an improved Transformer TF701 and an improved Fonepad 7. Sure, the tablet line-up that ASUS announced was not necessarily going to blow people away but, it was a quietly significant move for ASUS. Or at least, that’s what DigiTimes is reporting.
According to the industry site, ASUS is looking to step out of Google’s shadow a little more with their own brand tablets. The Nexus 7, and now the 2013 model, was a big success for both ASUS and Google. However, there’s an argument to be made that Google has benefited a little more than ASUS themselves have. Many consumers have been thinking why buy something else when Google’s own tablet is so cheap? Even ASUS had tablets on shelves while the Nexus 7 was soaring to the top. Sure, the Nexus 7 is still one of their productS but, we doubt they make as much money on selling the Nexus 7 so cheaply as they do on their own-brand products.
To this end, ASUS is apparently looking to cut the Nexus 7’s shipment proportion to 50% by the end of 2013 and down to just 20% in the second quarter of 2014. While this could mean that ASUS has lost interest in the Nexus 7 it’s more likely that they’ve simply woken up and realized that they have a lot to offer themselves. It’s been some time since we saw new tablets from ASUS and now, they’ve hit the market with a strong showing.
With rumors swirling that LG is going to make the next Nexus 7, it looks like 2014 is going to be an interesting year. Of course, 2013 is not over yet and we still have some Nexus-shaped surprises to come. What do you guys think? Can ASUS’ line of tablets stand up on their own, without Google’s Nexus brand?