Update Sept 5, 2020: Growing evidence suggests ASUS may now be bringing the ZenFone 7 to the US. That would also mean a release for Canada. Story is emerging but ASUS support staff indicating release for US is coming. Are those fine folks ill informed? New details here.
Here is a bit of a head scratcher for ya. When we first read this today, we dismissed it. But now we’ve seen a second article saying the same thing—the ZenFone 7 is not coming to North America. This is not conjecture. An official statement from ASUS has been issued. There is still part of us that wants to believe that this is not actually true.
Without getting into a full-on rant, let’s look at this.
When it comes to writing, there seems to always be a perfect word to describe a situation. If you think hard enough, there will be a word, a single word, that can summarize many thoughts. It’s a powerful thing! So here is the word that fits for us at least.
FLABBERGASTED
As it stands, ASUS is telling tech news outlets that the ZenFone 7 is not coming to North America. To us, that’s US and Canada. What this means for other similar countries that previously saw ZenFone releases, we cannot say at this time. May you be facing the same fate? Listen up because this may apply to you as well.
Here is the official statement from ASUS which was sent to the Canadian tech news website, Mobile Syrup.
“The ZF7 series do not fit the necessary 5G bands for North American 5G. While the 4G will work, we opted against launching a 5G ready/capable phone, without actual 5G support – as would have been the case for North America.”
We first spotted this suggestion on the Engadget ZenFone 7 Pro article in which the author suggested ASUS decided this year to skip North America due to limitations or compatibility issues regarding 5G bands.
Here is the quote from the Engadget article:
“ASUS has confirmed to Engadget that the ZenFone 7 series won’t be heading to North America, mainly due to the lack of most US 5G bands on the devices.”
Are we disappointed? Of course. Never did we think this would happen and given a majority of our website traffic comes from Canada and the US, this news impacts what we do here. To be completely frank about it, it has us rethinking our future. Bringing you news and information about the ZenFone series is a rewarding experience but when our core audience can’t buy the product?
Every ZenFone release has come to the US and Canadian markets. In fact it’s hard to think of any ASUS device aside from Zenbo and a some less mainstream and experimental products like the Eee Reader or Eee Note. Exclusion from a mainstream ASUS product was never a thought.
Maybe we should have seen this coming. Typically the North American market would be one of the last markets to get a ZenFone release. Thinking back, at times it was almost October by the time some ZenFone models got to the US or Canada. To put that into perspective, some markets would have the ZenFone models available to buy in the summer or late spring. ASUS had made it known in a subtle way that the North American market was not strong when it came to ZenFone sales. The strongest markets for ASUS get availability first, and with what we just mentioned previously, North America is the opposite of a priority.
We’ve plugged along here especially since the ZenFone 3 Series launch. To our delight, when it looked like ASUS was ready to pack it in and give up on their phone business, they come out with a hero, the ZenFone 6. Based on inventory woes, clearly this was an unexpected success for ASUS as they didn’t have production in place to deal with the demand.
Circling back to North America being a weak phone market for ASUS for a moment. There were rave reviews from everyone who bought a ZenFone 6 in North America. Not a negative word was said by reviewers from top tech websites in the US and Canada.
But of course without inventory, you can’t make sales. And without sales, how can you gauge consumer demand or interest? ASUS can’t rely on YouTube views or retweets to gauge interest. It was clear from our vantage point that if they had the inventory, they would have sold them all in the US and Canada. Nothing speaks louder than sales. It would seem from our vantage point that ASUS missed out on a lot of ZenFone 6 sales and could have flourished with a ZenFone 7 release that was in-stock more often than not.
The ZenFone 6 brought a whole new level of exposure for ASUS. People took notice, but not having units available to buy meant the demand could not be fully understood. We’re on the ground here. We see the indicators. We read what’s going on. How could a small website know anything about consumer wants and needs?
From our years of experience, there was simply no comparison to other ZenFone releases. You could have added up all the page views and positive comments from the previous generations of ZenFone releases and it wouldn’t have topped what we saw and read from people regarding the ZenFone 6. We aren’t a big player but we have insight.
If the ZenFone 7 is not coming to North America, then why did the ASUS North America twitter channel tweet out the ZenFone 7 release? Ouch for us! Read the replies to that tweet. We aren’t the only ones feeling slighted by this.
The wait is finally over. Discover ZenFone 7 Series and get some extraordinary in your life! #ZenFone7 #ZenFone7Pro #DefyOrdinary
— ASUS (@ASUS) August 26, 2020
It’s quite likely that many consumers in the US and Canada who couldn’t buy a ZenFone 6 due to no inventory were waiting for the ZenFone 7. It does rub a bit of salt in the wound knowing that inventory and availability for the ZenFone 7 will not be a concern this time around yet people who missed out on the ZenFone 6 won’t get that opportunity to buy a ZenFone 7.
When we first read of this decision by ASUS, we held out some hope. The ROG Phone 3 has the same processor as the ZenFone 7 Pro. The ROG Phone 3 has 5G as does the ZenFone 7 Pro. Because the ROG Phone 3 is coming to North America it made perfect sense to us that the ZenFone 7 would be here as well. For reasons we can’t understand, ASUS managed to get 5G for North America into their ROG Phone 3 but not in the ZenFone 7. That’s a head scratcher for us. Admittedly, 5G bands are not our specialty so we might be thinking too simplistically on this.
Are there options? ASUS says that the 4G would be fine in North America so there’s that. This may open the door for buying out of country but we know for a lot of you this is not an ideal scenario. Are you willing to dismiss potential warranty issues?
Here is another thought. Is this the end of the ZenFone brand for North America? ZenFone 6 is discontinued and unavailable. No ZenFone 7 this year. Who is to say anything changes with the ZenFone 8? It’s doubtful we will be optimistic about the ZenFone 8 and beyond landing in North America after this.
Maybe it’s ROG Phone only for North America?
At this juncture, this news is going to require a rethink for us and what we do with this website. Yes, it’s a dramatic development for us. As we say, we’re 100% ZenFone content. Perhaps not the brightest business model? Since we don’t run ads to generate revenue we rely on loyal site visitors. As mentioned previously, a large majority of visitors are from the North American market. Covering a product that consumers in the US and Canada can’t buy is a defeating proposition. It’s not sustainable.
So what are your thoughts on this? Disbelief? Are you going to buy one online from a different country and have it shipped to you in the US or Canada? Do you still hold out hope that this is just a bad dream and isn’t actually true? Please share your comment below.
