Asus gets paid handsomely for swallowing Google's Jellybean

ASUSTeK - Asus to you and me - has pulled a surprise jump in profit out of the bag as its tablets make up for slow PC sales.

The Taiwanese firm reported its largest quarterly profit in more than four years, spurred by its partnership with Google on the Nexus 7 and the enduring popularity of its own-brand snap-on keyboard fondletops.

While other PC-makers have suffered as their too-little-too-late attempts at tablets failed to spark consumer interest, Asus was quick to leap into mobile devices, and its consistent marketing of detachable keyboards have carved a decent niche for it in the fondleslab market.

The tablet share of its revenues has jumped to 16 per cent from 7 per cent last quarter, helping the firm bank 6.71bn Taiwanese dollars ($229.1m) in net profit, up 43 per cent from the same quarter last year. Asus shipped 2.3 million units in the quarter, nearly three times what it sent out in the spring.

Whether the rising popularity of its tablets has helped or not, Asus has also managed to hold steady in notebook sales at a time when rivals like HP and Dell are losing market share. The firm shipped five million notebooks and hybrids in Q3 and is expecting to offload 5.5 million next quarter.

Asus said its aim for next year is to be the number two firm for tablets and number one in touch notebooks. ®