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ASUS designs and sells laptops, desktop PCs, monitors, and computer parts, plus gaming phones and accessories, mostly under its own brand.
ASUS is one of the biggest computer brands in the world. It makes the laptops, desktop computers, monitors, and graphics cards that people buy for school, work, and gaming. It also makes the tiny circuit boards that sit inside almost every computer, and it sells gaming phones and accessories under the Republic of Gamers and ROG names.
The company was founded in Taiwan in 1989 by four engineers who left a chipmaker to build circuit boards themselves. Its big break came in the 2000s with a small, cheap laptop called the Eee PC, which helped start the low-cost laptop boom. Later it turned that engineering reputation into a strong gaming brand, and ROG laptops and parts now sell at premium prices to people who care about speed and looks. ASUS also sells to companies and schools that buy laptops in bulk, though consumers under its own brand are the heart of the business. Making computers is a thin-margin, brutally competitive business. ASUS competes with Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Acer, and the whole industry lives or dies on supply of chips and parts from a handful of suppliers, memory prices, and whether shoppers feel like upgrading. During the pandemic, demand for laptops exploded and then collapsed, leaving too much inventory and a painful hangover. ASUS also got caught up in the AI server boom, building servers and related hardware for data centers, which has become a real growth area but one where it competes with much larger players. There is also a geopolitical headache: ASUS is a Taiwanese company selling into China, and its products and reputation sit uncomfortably between the two.
Where the money goes says a lot about the business. ASUS pays a steady dividend and has historically been generous to shareholders when profits are good, rather than hoarding cash. It spends on research and design to keep its premium gaming and premium laptop lines ahead of rivals, because that is where the profit is. The company has had a rocky few years — a weak PC market, inventory writedowns, and a phone business that has never made much money — but it remains one of the few Taiwanese brands most consumers around the world can actually name.
Saved answer · last researched 27 Oct 2026