Published in Mobiles

ASUS and Gigabyte plan restructuring of mobile units

by on27 December 2016


No longer seeing growth in certain units

Since the first half of 2016, Asustek Computer has experienced a rapid decline of sales in its tablet businesses, while Gigabyte has not seen much profitability from its PC accessories unit.

Now, both companies have announced that they will begin restructuring efforts aimed at minimizing losses while shifting employees into more profitable departments.

ASUS to stop selling tablets

ASUS has told DigiTimes that it began reorganizing its tablet business during the first half of 2016 and has significantly reduced its portfolio of planned tablet devices and shipments for the remainder of the year. The company currently has hundreds of employees operating within its R&D and sales departments, and it now wants to relocate them to areas seeing higher growth, including smartphones and virtual / augmented reality products.

The company unveiled a smartphone-based virtual reality headset during Computex 2016 called the ASUS VR. The device is similar to the Samsung Gear VR as it can accommodate up to a 5.7-inch Android device, though ASUS hopes its customers will use it with its ZenFone 3 lineup.

Gigabyte to stop selling smartphones, PC peripherals

Gigabyte, on the other hand, is also planning to adjust operations in subsidiary units with slowing performance including the GSmart smartphone lineup and its PC and mobile accessory products. More briefly, the company plans to stop all related R&D and sales within these units. From there, it will decide whether to cut or relocate employees in an effort to shift resources to more profitable product linups.

The company’s GSmart series was led by its Gigabyte Communications unit, which announced in June 2015 that it would be looking to retire the company’s smartphone business after 11 years of producing a small handful of Android phones, Windows phones and feature phones.

The other subsidiary undergoing adjustment includes Gigazone International, which mainly handles its PC and mobile peripheral products. This includes cases, power supplies, keyboards, mice, speakers, headsets, USB power banks and other related accessories.

Last modified on 14 January 2017
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