After selling about 105,000 ZenFones in May and more than 200,000 units last month. Asustek Computer expects to ship more smartphones this month. ZenFone 5 ranked as the bestselling smartphone locally for two consecutive months, the company hopes the wider ZenFone range “will remain the bestseller in July,” following the launch of its first 4G long-term evolution (LTE) handset, Asustek’s corporate vice president Benson Lin said.
The ZenFone 5 LTE has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.2GHz quad-core processor and costs NT$6,990 (US$233) for a 16GB model, undercutting models with similar specifications from competitors, such as Sony Corp’s Xperia M2 at NT$9,900, and HTC Corp’s Desire 610 at NT$7,990.
Chief executive officer Jerry Shen said Asustek has targeted China’s Xiaomi Corp as its main competitor in the budget smartphone segment and is confident about its own competitiveness, as Asus smartphones are well received in Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Malaysia.
Asustek in May told investors that it expected to sell 5 million to 10 million smartphones this year.
