ASUS Plans Killer Eee PC, Sells Too Few Because of Apple's iPad

That the iPad was doing bad things to the number of netbook and overall laptop sales is not really news, but it looks like sales numbers are at last being discovered, so consumers can get a better idea of how things are.

ASUS is one of those companies that reaped quite a bit of profit off the netbook market and had been planning on exploiting the device type for years to come.

At least, this was the plan until last year, when the Apple iPad, the first media tablet, came out and started a chain reaction.

It wasn't long before notebook and smartphone makers alike were doing their best to make something that could challenge it on hardware and software levels.

Their success, thus far, has been limited, but netbook shipments have been falling anyway, even now that models sell for under $300 and, in rare cases, maybe even under $200.

ASUS's own number of Eee PC shipments is said to have been just 350,000 during the Month of April.

Unlike Acer, however, the company won't go through any major business direction revision, deciding, instead, to just improve the Eee PC design until it offsets the popularity and freshness advantages of tablets.

More specifically, ASUS is planning a so-called “killer” Eee PC, one that should show up in June, maybe during Computex or soon after.

No details are known about it though, except that either an Intel Atom N570 dual-core or an AMD Fusion chip will be utilized.

Still, even if it does manage to restore some of the interest in entry-level laptops, netbook will never really attain the sales levels that companies hoped for back in early 2010.

Either way, the outfit will most likely end up benefiting more from its sales of the Eee Pad Transformer, although it will have to get over all the shortage and demand issues first.