Asus will raise PC selling prices in the second quarter by as much as 30 percent or more, Taiwan's Economic Daily News reported on March 24 local time. It said PC costs have risen sharply as surging memory and SSD prices coincide with a CPU supply shortage.
Other Taiwanese PC brands such as Acer, MSI and Gigabyte also plan to raise prices by an average of more than 10 percent.
Liao I-hsiang (랴오이샹), head of the system business unit at Asus United Technology System, said at a media briefing, "It is not only Asus raising prices. All Taiwanese PC brands are raising them." He added, "Parts prices could remain strong in the second half."
He recommended that consumers looking to replace their PCs buy sooner. Taiwan's PC market is seeing demand rise as both consumers and distributors move to buy in advance in anticipation of price increases. Liao forecast that Asus PC sales volume in Taiwan in the first half of this year will rise by about 10 percent from a year earlier.
Chi-gyu Hwang
delight@d-today.co.kr