The X-series will ship in Q1 next year...

Asus has outsourced the production of its upcoming X-series notebooks to Foxconn. As DigiTimes detail, Foxconn will be producing over 40,000 Asus notebooks each month.

The sources pointed out that Asustek has decided to reduce overlapping specifications across notebook models and will concentrate on shipping higher volumes of fewer models for the next two quarters. The company usually has up to 5-7 different specifications for one notebook model, incurring higher labor costs and more complicated component management. Asustek is beginning to adjust notebook specifications from September aiming to improve the outsourcing volume of single products, and expects to complete the adjustment in October.

Asustek president Jerry Shen mentioned that in order to lower costs, the proportion of notebooks and Eee PCs outsourced beyond the Asustek group will be about 30% in the second quarter of 2009.

Asustek spokesman David Chang also pointed out the outsourcing of Asustek's notebooks will be on an OEM basis only, Asustek will continue to invest in research and development.