Asus netbook price hikes on the way?

priceee Low cost netbooks may be selling like hotcakes during the recession. But it still costs money to make and distribute these little laptops, making the profit margins pretty slim. So it’s not completely surprising to see an Australian news portal reporting that Asus plans to raise prices on all its existing and upcoming notebooks including its Eee PC netbooks by as much as 20 percent.

But the report does leave a few questions. Will the price hikes be for Australia only, or will the be heard around the world? And how would Asus be able to fend off competition from Acer, Dell, and other computer makers that are offering machines in the $300 to $350 price range if it hikes its prices. Perhaps we’ll see a 1 to 5 percent price increase in Eee PC models, and higher markups on more expensive laptops from Asus?

I’m trying to get a comment from Asus on this story. I’ll let you know what, if anything, I find out.

Update: My contact at Asus says he hasn’t heard anything about this, so I’m going to file it as a rumor for now.

Update 2: A German Asus rep has also denied that any price hikes are on the way.

via Netbook News.de

Posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009, 10:24 am by Brad Linder

wayne

I wouldn't worry too much about this rumour. Seems to be the think retailers are doing “Down Under” at the moment. After years of rising prices due to “the drought” then “the fuel surcharge” they are now struggling to find new ways to justify raising prices. The “economic meltdown” and “devalued dollar” are the latest sales buzz words designed to encourage buyers to buy now.

They've already said tvs are going up by 30% soon… funny it didn't happen on February 1 when it was supposed to. It would be a very brave supplier who would raise prices in the current, fragile sales environment.

A smart supplier would take a short term hit to move stock and then perhaps take longer to pass on future savings. We already pay well over the US retail prices so there has to be plenty of margins there for someone in the supply chain.
Mark

>It would be a very brave supplier who would raise prices in the current, fragile sales environment.

I'm not sure about this. Before Christmas, I was able to purchase an ASUS EEEPC 1000H for $599 AUD. Right now, just two months later, I can't seem to get another one for any less than $699 AUD. I opted instead for a MSI Wind U100, which had near enough to identical specifications, for $630 AUD.

Unfortunately, both of these came with Windows XP Home. Linux variants are (almost) nowhere to be seen at retail outlets in Australia.

Fortunately, the new development version of Ubuntu called Jaunty Jackalope, to be released in April as Ubuntu/Kubuntu 9.04, works out of the box on the ASUS EEEPC 1000H. I think it would work on the MSI Wind model also.

KDE 4.2 (in the Kubuntu variant of Jaunty Jackalope) is very, very good for netbooks. All that it requires, out of the box, is to set the systems fonts to a slightly smaller size, and to set the screen DPI to 120.
http://www.techsupport4nyc.com Mike

Why dont they just give them away already?
MountainBiker

>The “economic meltdown” and “devalued dollar” are the latest sales buzz words designed to encourage buyers to buy now.

When I bought my first eeePC (701) for AUD$499, AND when the subsequent models came out the aussie dollar was still buying 95 US cents.

I wouldn't be surprised if retailers have been taking “a short term hit to move stock” for some time now and are just now needing to raise prices to maintain profitability.
http://www.chadwsmith.com/ Chad78

Prce Hikes are never a good thing.
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http://hithottech.com Technology

I am not sure that something like can't happen, but not sure that eeepc will bee more expensive than now… but new version will probably be.
Harry

The reason that netbooks are selling so well is that prices are almost at the point of an impulse purchase.

In addition future generations of netbooks will bring many omprovements. Touch screens, 3G/WiMax networking GPS etc. A lot of room for improvements in future generations of machines. So ideally you want to sell to people who bought the first gen netbooks. This will keep a healthy market going for some time.

But that won't happen if prices are raised. So my opinion? Raising prices is stupid and will seriously shrink the market. I hope the updates are true, and Asus doesn't plan this.
http://hithottech.com Technology

I am not sure that something like can't happen, but not sure that eeepc will bee more expensive than now… but new version will probably be.
Harry

The reason that netbooks are selling so well is that prices are almost at the point of an impulse purchase.

In addition future generations of netbooks will bring many omprovements. Touch screens, 3G/WiMax networking GPS etc. A lot of room for improvements in future generations of machines. So ideally you want to sell to people who bought the first gen netbooks. This will keep a healthy market going for some time.

But that won't happen if prices are raised. So my opinion? Raising prices is stupid and will seriously shrink the market. I hope the updates are true, and Asus doesn't plan this.
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http://www.howtowoodworking.info/ How To Woodworking

Hmm… I am waiting for the Lowest Rate….. Can I buy a new netbook below INR 15000 ?

Asus netbook price hikes on the way?

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