ASUS doesn’t have their hand in a lot of smartphone markets. When it comes to phones they tend to stick to their home base in Taiwan, which is what they’ve done for most of the PadFone series of devices. The PadFone is ASUS dual product pair of a smartphone that docks into a tablet display, basically letting you mirror whatever is on the phone to the larger display and thus eliminating the need for a tablet and a phone. Up until now, ASUS has chosen not to enter other larger smartphone markets due to a lack of knowledge on how well the device would be received by the average consumer.
While that choice has been disappointing for a handful of people, ASUS CEO Jerry Shen has finally decided it’s time for the company to take their products more worldwide and enter the US and European cellphone markets stating that, “The fact that such an expensive device still managed to sell nearly 300 units per day in Taiwan means the user base is quite stable, so in June, I was confident enough to tell my team that it’s time to go mainstream. Without knowing our customers’ acceptance, I did not dare to go mainstream, because going mainstream requires a lot of effort.”
This is certainly good news for many consumers that have been intrigued with the PadFone line since ASUS’ most recent iteration, the PadFone Infinity. The move to bring the device across to the US first is one of testing, as to give more confidence that if it does well here, they can do well in the European market as well.
To elaborate on that, according to Engadget CEO Jerry Shen says that ASUS has a High End product already in the works for a Q2 launch and that it will be developed for a “Big Operator”. Furthermore, Shen states that once ASUS tackles the US market with this high end version of the PadFone, they won’t have any issues with being able to tackle Europe with the same device because this US operator is “Very Big”. Is this a possible hint at which carrier might take on the device? We’ll let you think on that one. While there’s no word on the recently announced PadFone Mini coming to the States, we’re holding out hope. The important thing to remember is that the ASUS PadFone will finally be a US reality and although it may come along with a high ticket price, it will be a price well deserved.