With the rehab of the world economy proceeding rather well, hardware makers are beginning to regain their taste for ambitious goals. The IT market fared rather well in 2009, compared with the previous year, and companies are expecting 2010 to keep seeing improvements in all segments. In line with this prediction, computer vendors are setting high goals for themselves, with some even aiming to outperform or overcome their rivals. Most recently, market reports have been suggesting that ASUS may be planning on actually outselling both Toshiba and Lenovo in the area of notebook/netbook PCs.

Digitimes reports that, according to Shien-Yueh Hsu, general manager of Asustek's notebook division, the company hopes to ship no less than 20 million laptops during the ongoing year. Out of these, 12 million would be standard notebooks, with the remaining eight million sales left to Eee PC netbooks.

The company believes that it would be able to achieve this performance through sales of USB 3.0-capable devices. ASUS has been recently revealed to be in the final stages of preparing to introduce a couple of notebooks with built-in support for the new interface, namely the ASUS N61 and ASUS N82. These PCs are expected to debut in Taiwan sometime around the middle of the current month.

ASUS reportedly estimates that, out of its total laptop shipments, such USB 3.0-enabled notebooks would make up 30%. Currently, the company is relying on chips from NEC to provide 3.0 functionality, but plans are in the works to gradually shift towards using processors made by ASUS subsidiary ASMedia Technology. This shift is expected to occur around May or June.

This goal is definitely ambitious, but, if successful, ASUS will become the fifth largest vendor of notebooks worldwide. Nevertheless, Digitmes also states that, according to sources from other notebook players, ASUS won't have an easy time meeting its goal.