According to Digitimes Asustek will have its work cut out as worldwide smartphone shipments were less than 1.3 billion units in 2015 and growth in 2016 expected to be even weaker.

Asustek shipped 20.5 million smartphones in 2015, up from 8.5 million in 2014. Under the glorious plan Asuste will raise its Indonesian shipments from 3.5 million units to five million. Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand will get five million ZenFone smartphones combined in 2016.

In Brazil, Asustek is mainly outsourcing its ZenFone orders to Foxconn plants in Brazil due to the country's high customs charges. Asustek shipped around one million units in 2015 in Brazil and is aiming to ship three million units in 2016.

In India, Asustek wants to sell a million more phones Asustek currently has about 70 per cent of its smartphones made by Foxconn's plants in India as the India government raised its import custom for handsets in early 2015,As for Africa, Asustek is trying to sort out local distributors and is hoping to achieve over 500,000 shipments in 2016.

If all this pays off Asustek could may also have a chance to become a top-five smartphone vendor in 2016.  The operative word is "if."  The world seems to be losing interest in smartphones fairly fast but with low mid-range phones, which include the Zenfone more or less doing the same thing as more pricey models, it might just pull it off.