Asus eyes 30% monthly growth in consumer laptop business in 2025

Overall, for the industry, the growth in the consumer laptop segment is likely to remain at 10-15 per cent year-on-year for every month until December 2025, Arnold Su said

Taiwanese electronics major Asus is eyeing 30 per cent monthly growth in its consumer laptop business through December, banking on Covid-era buyers upgrading their devices and festival season demand, the company's top executive has said.

 

Overall, for the industry, the growth in the consumer laptop segment is likely to remain at 10-15 per cent year-on-year for every month until December 2025, Arnold Su, vice-president of consumer and gaming personal computers and system business group at Asus India, told Business Standard.

 

The growth of artificial intelligence (AI) laptops, which were once expected to be the next significant driver of growth for consumer laptops, has not materialised as anticipated, he said.

 

“There is a certain set of customers who are always eager for the latest technology, they do it (upgrade to AI laptops). However, most common folk do not. The main reason is that the usage of AI PC is still not clear to the general public,” Su said.

 

Most customers do not currently require high-end graphics cards and do not opt for such devices, but the AI PC-to-general PC ratio might increase in the future, he added.

 

“The shift (from regular PC to AI PC) will be like the shift from feature phones to smartphones, and will become an unstoppable trend. Initially, a lot of users were not clear on why they needed the smartphone, but now nothing can be done without a smartphone,” Su said, adding that the AI PCs will also follow a similar trend.

 

Currently, AI PCs account for about 5 per cent of total consumer laptop sales in India, but this is expected to rise to up to 30 per cent by the end of 2026, primarily driven by the increasing number of AI-backed applications that will demand more computing power, he said, adding that eventually 75 per cent of the consumer laptop portfolio for all companies, including Asus, will be composed of AI PCs.

 

Although Asus has so far not seen any impact from the slowdown in spending due to tariffs and other global uncertainties, the company continues to observe users' spending habits for any shift in buying patterns, he said.

 

The company also plans to expand its retail store presence either through exclusive Asus stores or retail partner channels to be present in all the districts in India, he said.

 

“In India, we have 780 districts, of which Asus has already covered 602 district capitals with partners selling our products in those markets. India also has 6,000 talukas (district subdivisions). The strategy is that once the districts are covered, we will move to cover all the 6,000 talukas through our retail presence,” he said.