Chairman of Asustek Computer, Johnny Shih, said at a press conference in Taiwan that his company would boost shipments of its mobile computers to 20 million units next year from 11.3 million this year. If the targets are achieved, Asus will become the world’s No. 4 maker of notebooks. Hewlett-Packard reportedly is already taking measures to stop Asustek’s rapid expansion.

According to Taiwan Economic News, Asustek ranks as between No. 5 and No. 7 brands of notebook PCs in the world this year, depending on market surveys by different tracking companies. With 20 million notebook units shipped next year, Asus is very likely to unseat Lenovo, Toshiba and Apple as world’s fourth-largest notebook brand in 2009, only trailing HP, Dell and Acer.

Mr. Shih noted that Asustek pins most of its hopes on Asus Eee PC netbooks that are already very successful. Asus-branded notebooks are usually sold at premium price-points, hence, considering the current market conditions it is unlikely to expect them to become considerably more popular. It should be kept in mind that it will hardly be easy for Asus to boost sales of Eee PCs considerably since there are more and more competitive offerings on the market.

According to some estimates, global sales of netbook PCs are estimated at 30 million units next year, with Asustek to absorb between 8 million and 10 million units.

Tags: ASUS, Eee