Asus Smartphone Business Exit 2026: Official Shift to AI Robots and Smart Glasses
Asus Chairman Jonney Shih confirmed the Asus smartphone business exit 2026. The company will stop developing Zenfone and ROG Phone models to focus on AI robots and smart glasses.
The era of high-performance gaming phones is reaching its final chapter. Asus is officially winding down its smartphone operations to pivot toward the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence and wearable tech.
The Context Behind Asus Smartphone Business Exit 2026
As of January 19, 2026, Asus Chairman Jonney Shih confirmed that the company will no longer release new mobile models. During a kick-off event in Taiwan, as reported by Inside, Shih indicated that the company is taking an "indefinite wait-and-see" approach, effectively signaling the end for the Zenfone and ROG Phone lineups.
While the company hasn't used the word 'discontinued' in a legal sense, the message is clear: Asus is throwing in the towel in a market where it struggled to find a mass audience. Analysts suggest that the saturation of the premium smartphone market and the high R&D costs for niche gaming phones made the business unsustainable compared to the potential of emerging AI sectors.
Betting Everything on AI Robots and Smart Glasses
Instead of phones, Asus will focus its resources on AI products like robots and smart glasses. This strategic pivot aims to capture the next wave of computing where AI interacts directly with the physical world through robotics and augmented reality. Shih's vision suggests that the future of Asus lies in being an AI hardware pioneer rather than a secondary player in the mobile space.
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