Asus Walks Away from Smartphones to Chase AI and PCs
Asus has slammed the door on the smartphone race and walked straight toward a different battlefield. The company will shut down both its ROG Phone and Zenfone lines after years of scraping along with a global share that did not even clear 2%. That tiny footprint never matched the noise around its gaming flagships. The inescapable conclusion is simple: phones stop, everything else gets priority. The ROG logo now belongs mainly to PCs, and the company wants its next big story to be physical AI hardware.
Why Asus Finally Gave Up on Phones
The writing sat on the wall for anyone who bothered to glance at market share charts. Asus phones ended up buried in the StatCounter “Other” bucket, somewhere below Google’s modest 1.94% global share. That isn’t a niche; that’s a rounding error. Ambitious designs didn’t fix that. ROG Phones pushed specs, Zenfones chased compact fans, but carrier support, marketing muscle, and scale never lined up. In a market where Samsung and Apple soak up attention and Chinese vendors flood every price band, Asus fought on hard mode with no extra lives.
The End of ROG Phone and Zenfone
Two distinct visions now hit the same dead end. ROG Phone tried to be the dream device for mobile gamers: huge batteries, advanced cooling, wild accessories. 2023’s ROG Phone 7 Ultimate even set the tone for the whole gaming phone category. Zenfone took the opposite route, leaning into compact flagships and camera tricks, culminating in the Zenfone 12 Ultra. That model now looks suspiciously like a final chapter. Taiwanese reports hint that this retreat might be temporary, but the current move lands more like a full stop than a comma.
What Happens to Current Asus Phone Owners
The announcement triggers the usual panic first: support, updates, repairs. Jonney Shih tried to cut that off at the source. The company will “continue to take care of the brand’s mobile users,” which translates into ongoing software updates for devices still within their support window. That includes recent flagships like the ROG Phone 9 Pro from November 2024 and the Zenfone 12 Ultra. The phones don’t vanish, the app stores don’t break, and the networks don’t stop talking to them. The product roadmap dies; the installed base keeps breathing for now.
From Niche Phones to PCs and ‘Physical AI’
The exit doesn’t signal retreat from tech, just a change of battlefield. Asus already holds a strong position in PCs, especially gaming rigs where the ROG name actually dominates instead of scraping the bottom. So the pivot leans into that strength and then reaches further. Shih flagged a focus on “physical AI” products, which means tangible devices rather than just cloud models: think AI hardware, robotics, and smart glasses. In a world wrestling with RAM shortages and environmental strain from constant phone churn, dropping one smartphone line almost looks responsible.
The smartphone era of Asus ends not with a hardware failure but with a strategic shrug. The company judged that chasing slivers of market share in a saturated Android landscape no longer made sense, even with standout devices like the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate on the record. Less competition hurts innovation on paper, yet one less manufacturer might ease pressure on resources and emissions at the margins. The signal is clear: Asus wants to be known for powerful PCs and concrete AI devices, not for fighting giants in a shrinking phone battlefield.