Asus expects to ship about 1.8 million tablets by the end of the year and the company is gearing up to introduce its first second generation Transformer Prime tablet on November 9.

Asus shipped 1.2 million tablets in the first three quarters, but it hopes tablet shipments in Q4 will hit 600,000. Asus is also planning to upgrade its tablets to Ice Cream Sandwich in early December and it is hoped the new OS will boost Tranformer Prime sales as well.

The announcement confirms earlier reports - Transformer Prime will run Honeycomb on launch, but within a few weeks it will be upgraded to ICS. Asus also confirmed that it would introduce the innovative Padfone in February and there is also talk of a cheaper, 7-inch Eee Pad Transformer.

Commenting the future of Windows 8, Asus CEO Jerry Shen said it featured a “satisfactory” user interface and performance. Shen believes Windows 8 stands a chance to completely change the tablet market and defeat iOS as the primary tablet platform.

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