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Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand

By | May 6, 2011, 7:52am PDT

Summary: The iPad 2 isn’t the only tablet in high demand this spring. Of all the tablets that launched this season, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer is facing a shortage problem.

The iPad 2 isn’t the only tablet in high demand this spring. Of all the tablets that launched this season, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer is facing a shortage problem.

According to Netbook News, rumors of the shortage began to fly after Asus’s quarterly earnings report. ASUSTek spokesperson David Chang responded by saying:

If the demand continues to increase substantially then we will have to continue to ramp up production in order to fulfill our customers’ demand.

To alleviate the situation, Asus will be producing an “expected 100,000 units in May and 200,000+ units to be hitting the streets in June.”

Earlier this year, who would have expected that one of the hottest tablets this year (at least so far) would come from Asus? However, it shouldn’t be that surprising given some of the high-end specs for a lower price: a 10.1-inch capacitive LED touch screen, a NVIDIA Tegra 2 1Ghz dual-core processor, and up to 9.5 hours of battery life without using the optional keyboard.

The Asus Eee Pad Transformer started shipping in North America on April 26 for $399 for the 16GB edition and $499 for 32GB of storage space. However, good luck getting one at the moment as it’s sold out stateside from Amazon and other major retailers already.

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ASUS, Shortage, Netbook, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Hardware, Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

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Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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RE: Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand
Tech Savvy Buff Updated - 5th Jul
@olePigeon While demand may be "high" and the Transformer is a pretty ripping tablet... unfortunately for Asus the tablets success depends solely on the the popularity of "honeycomb"

that being said i have a transformer and LOVE it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_AFAPJGSLs
View in thread
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I think they did a good job...
olePigeon 6th May 2011
I think they did a good job at creating a truly unique tablet compared to the usual offerings. It's pretty cool.
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Yes, but "high demand" means that demand is higher than manufacturing ...
DeRSSS Updated - 6th May 2011
@olePigeon: ... abilities, which can be really low for the time.

So, basically, we just have Asus dancing around the PR words.
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Idiot
Economister 6th May 2011
@denisrs

Fan boy idiot, plain and simple.
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Don't you love when intellectual heavyweights...
ShazAmerica Updated - 6th May 2011
@denisrs

posts back a derogatory reply to your very logical, and most of the time, true reason for a company 'selling out' of a product?.

Remember when HP said they sold out of the Slate? And it turned out they had made only like 9K of them for fear they wouldn't sell?

Asus, sold what they made to antiApple users. Their sales will peter out over the next month, and they'll sell maybe half a million a year going forward, nowhere near the projected 40-50 million Apple will sell every year, so to compare it to the iPad was asinine on the writers part.
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Decisionmaking under uncertainty
Robert Hahn 6th May 2011
@denisrs You're right. We don't know how many they had ordered, and we don't know the effect of any component shortages they may or may not be facing. What we do know is that there is "demand," it exceeds "supply," and if (his words not ours) demand continues to increase, they will have to increase their forecast.

Hey, I wish them well. I like Asus. And I think they were wise to proceed cautiously as far as building these things before they saw how it was received. They hate not having enough, but they'd hate it more if they'd ordered two million and had to eat them. That is almost certainly going to happen to somebody in this race, and it may already have. How 'bout that XOOM?
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RE: Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand
Peter Perry 6th May 2011
@ShazAmerica I am very much a fan of honeycomb and this Tablet is interesting... But don't blame Asus for this, it wasn't that they couldn't manufacture them it was the fact that Japan's issues limited the supply of display.

The truth is that Most Best Buys didn't even get a shipment on launch day... I went to 3 within 15 miles of my house and the last one checked inventories showing only a few stores got them in all of Tampa and they sold out fast.
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Economister: are you feeling well? Your reaction is inadequate to the calm
DeRSSS Updated - 6th May 2011
@Economister: and reasonable post of mine, where I actually agreed that EPT is unique work. You did not see that "Yes" in the "subject" field of my post because you are blinded by fanaticism.
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RE: Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand
noagenda 6th May 2011
@denisrs

How did you get from "If the demand continues to increase substantially then we will have to continue to ramp up production in order to fulfill our customers? demand." to lacking the ability to manufacture?
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There is no other way to understand their statement
DeRSSS Updated - 6th May 2011
@noagenda: it is the same as with Apple who could sell only 1.2 million of iPad 2 in the two weeks of March when it was on sale before the end of their financial quarter (11 March-26 March). They had to accept that there is huge backlog and the production was weak to provide enough devices.

With Asus, the claim is the same, but they do not tell the volume their sold before their surpassed their current manufacturing abilities. This difference comparing to Apple show how little the production was, then can not reveal a number since they consider it to be a shame.

The only thing Asus' PR people could do is to say that the demand was "high" without actually naming any measurements.
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RE: Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand
noagenda Updated - 6th May 2011
@denisrs


Of course there is another way to interperate what was stated. The correct way. He did not say they lacked the ability to meet demand. He specifically said that IF demand increased substantially from projected levels they would HAVE to add capacity.
For example, I am in the business of building hobby horses. I plan to sell 1500 horses in the month of April. I can build 10,000 horses a week. That is my current capacity. I expected my dealers to sell thru 1200 horses over the month of April, 2000 horses over the month of May, 5000 in June ... ratcheting up to 10,000 a week by January 2012. I have the ability to add capacity of another 20,000 horses a week should the need arise. Now, my dealers actually sell 1500 horses in the first three weeks of April. I adjust my shipping estimate upwards and increase (ramp up like the Asus spokesman said) my throughput per week to 2500.

This is what the spokesman was saying. Sales out stripped expectations. They are planning on delivering 100,000 units to their channels in May, 200000 in June. IF THIS DOESN"T MEET DEMAND AT THAT TIME ... they will further increase output. Prettty simple if you don't look at everything as a percieved threat to your beloved Apple.

He did not put a PR spin on anything. Paraphrasing he said, Sales were better than we had expected. If sales continue to grow at that rapid a rate we'll add the necessary capacity. I didn't see anywhere in his comments that he was suggesting his device was dethroning your idols device(s).
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Your answer is well constucted, supported with good analogies, but you are
DeRSSS 6th May 2011
@noagenda: ... much better than Asus since you actually used figures.

Until they disclose the quantity/sales, I can not see that their statement is not just a PR spin. Especially after poor sales of other tables in Q1.
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RE: Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand
Tech Savvy Buff Updated - 5th Jul
@olePigeon While demand may be "high" and the Transformer is a pretty ripping tablet... unfortunately for Asus the tablets success depends solely on the the popularity of "honeycomb"

that being said i have a transformer and LOVE it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_AFAPJGSLs
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The Transformer does rock
transformer4ever 6th May 2011
I've had mine since launch day apr 26 9am cause I wanted it really bad and I'm glad I showed up when the store opened cause they were gone within 2 hours.
I've been shooting videos showing all its features, HD video on it looks great, check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Vc3t-aGzM&feature=channel_video_title
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RE: Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand
Peter Perry 6th May 2011
No, they went with a display manufactured in Japan is what I am hearing... Now those Displays are slow rolling out.
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RE: Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand
rhonin 6th May 2011
@Peter Perry
Big time slow......
sad
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docking tablet sliders
willyampz 6th May 2011
Reasonably priced honeycomb/ice cream based docking tablets and, even better, the slider kind I think have a chance, unlike expensive xoom-like ones. Even better, maybe when android 3.1 comes out, would be like the atrix but where the phone slides inside the dock (not sticking out on back) which is also a tablet slider and the phone could be the trackpad and the brains of the system.

Use your phone, then:
Slide the phone in, use as a android tablet.
Slide the screen up, use as a android laptop.
Somebody's got to be doing this, right?
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RE: Asus faces shortage of Eee Pad Transformer due to high demand
rhonin 6th May 2011
Too true.....
I suspect there was an unintended shortage from the Japan disaster - my reserved copy on Amazon was "delayed" due to the shortage.
Hoping to get my 16gb version soon - looks like a sweet tablet! grin

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