It’s a tough day for anyone who liked the underdog energy of the Zenfone or the sheer overkill of the ROG Phone. Asus has officially confirmed what the rumors suggested: there will be no new smartphones in 2026.
They call it a “strategic break,” but let’s be honest – that feels a lot harder than just taking a gap year. According to reports from early January, the company has basically frozen its development pipeline. That means no ROG Phone 9, no Zenfone 12 Ultra and probably nothing else for a long time. They’re taking the resources once spent on building cool pocket computers and shifting them to the unsexy but profitable world of AI hardware and enterprise technology.
A “break” that feels like a farewell
Asus uses safe corporate language, but the industry copy is at risk. You can’t just “pause” smartphone development for a year and expect to get back into it; These devices take 12 to 18 months to build. If they don’t work on it now, they won’t come out anytime soon.
Analysts are watching this and see a quiet exit. It’s the classic enthusiast brand tragedy: Asus made incredible phones. The Zenfone was the king of compact Android devices and the ROG Phone was the undisputed champion of mobile gaming. The reviewers loved them. Hardcore fans swore by them. But in the end, good reviews aren’t worth it unless you move millions of devices like Samsung or Apple.
The reality is that the smartphone market is a meat grinder in 2025 and 2026
The giants (Apple, Samsung) and the aggressive Chinese brands (Oppo, Vivo) are displacing everyone else. Additionally, the cost of making phones – particularly RAM and storage – has skyrocketed. For a smaller player like Asus, the margins were simply no longer there.
In the meantime, check out what else Asus is doing. They are seeing massive growth in AI servers, data centers and robotics. That’s where the industry is headed, and frankly, that’s where the money is. Why fight for scrap in the phone market when you can sell the shovels for the AI gold rush?
Having an Asus phone in your pocket won’t let you down right away. The company has promised to keep the lights on with software updates and security patches. But let’s be honest: When a company stops making new hardware, the clock starts ticking on how long it will support the old hardware.
Asus insists its mobile division is not “dead,” but this silence on plans beyond 2026 is deafening. It feels eerily similar to when LG pulled out of the market in 2021. For now, we have to accept the reality: the Asus smartphone era is on hold indefinitely.
