ASUS PadFone To Roll Out Domestically

It looks like the ASUS PadFone will be launching stateside after all. Jerry Shen, ASUS’ CEO, says his company is ready to look beyond its native Taiwan and begin marketing the PadFone internationally.

The PadFone is a smartphone/tablet convertible. The company’s newly-launched PadFone mini boasts a 4.3-inch display, 1.4GHz quad-core processor and 1GB RAM. When its docked into the tablet, it transforms to a 7-inch display with a 1280 x 800 resolution.

To date, ASUS has mostly avoided taking its hardware to market in the U.S. and Europe, but it looks like that’s about to change.

"The fact that such an expensive device still managed to sell nearly 300 units per day in Taiwan means the user base is quite stable," Shen said in an interview with Engadget. "So in June, I was confident enough to tell my team that it's time to go mainstream. Without knowing our customers' acceptance, I did not dare to go mainstream, because going mainstream requires a lot of effort."

Translation: ASUS sold about 10,000 PadFones every month between April and August in Taiwan alone. Between June and August, the PadFone Infinity (the more expensive model) sold between 200 and 300 units every day.

Shen says the company is focused on optimizing the UI and other aspects of the software before a U.S. launch, followed by a European roll out. While it’s unclear who will be the domestic distributor for the PadFone, Shen seems confident that the company ASUS has struck an agreement with is large enough to take it all the way to Europe.

"Once this product is launched [in the US], we will definitely have no problem tackling Europe with the same product, because this US operator is very big." Shen said. "We are determined to perfect this product. We will keep improving it, and then bring most of its goodies to our other mainstream products. The PadFone will set the standard for our devices."

While the PadFone is a pretty neat piece of hardware, it represents a fairly radical paradigm shift from the way Americans currently use their smartphones and tablets. It will be interesting to see how quickly the device is able to find traction in the U.S.