Taipei, June 9 (CNA) Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc. will emerge as one of the two top consumer choices in Asia, an analyst said Saturday as Computex Taipei 2012 wound down.
The Taiwanese brand is expected to benefit from the release of Windows 8, new Ultrabooks, Intel's Ivy Bridge processor and cloud computing, all of which were featured at Asia's largest information technology fair, said Kirk Yang of Barclays.
"This is the most exciting year since the launch of netbooks in 2007," Yang said on the last day of the five-day show.
Yang said he was optimistic about the outlook for PCs running Microsoft's Windows 8, although they cannot beat Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet or smartphones.
Spending on high-tech products will largely hinge on the economic outlook, but demand will increase for new products, and old products will be phased out, he forecast.
He said he was optimistic about Asian PC brands that will run Windows 8.
The top choices will be Lenovo of China and Asustek, Yang said, giving an "overweight" recommendation on shares of the two companies.
In addition, Apple is expected to unveil a new MacBook model at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) June 11-15 in San Francisco, which would give a boost to Quanta Computer, a major PC contract maker and supplier of Apple laptops.
At this year's fair, Taiwan's two big PC makers Acer Inc. and Asustek unveiled a series of new products equipped with the Windows 8 operating system.
Eve Jung, an analyst with Nomura Securities, said that although Acer's design ability has grown, the company still needs time to strengthen the brand image of its mid-range and high-end products and its market identification.
Acer's sales remain high in the European market but its progress in the China market has been slow, she said.
With the rising competition from Lenovo, Jung said, she will maintain a cautious outlook on Acer.
Meanwhile, she kept an "overweight" recommendation on Asustek at a stock price of NT$370 (US$12.36), citing its strong design capability and the pending release of a tablet PC co-branded with Google.
(By Lo Hsiu-wen and Lilian Wu)
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