Asus has said that it will launch its products in India soon. Whether it’s the company’s latest AI PC series or the GeForce RTX 50 series ROG gaming laptops, customers in the country don’t have to wait. It took Asus a few months to bring its ROG Ally gaming handheld series to India after its global launch, but the Taiwanese manufacturer wasted no time with the launch of new Xbox-branded ROG Ally devices.
ROG Xbox Ally X and Xbox Ally were launched in India on October 16 and launched in major global markets on the same day. Priced at Rs. 1,14,990 Rs. Priced at $69,990 each, the new handheld is significantly more expensive than 2023’s ROG Ally and last year’s ROG Ally X ( review ). But this did not dampen everyone’s enthusiasm. In fact, according to Asus, the high-end and expensive Xbox Ally X is outselling the base model in India.
This is also a surprise for Asus, said Arnold Su, vice-president of Asus India’s consumer and gaming PC business. “Earlier, when we launched ROG Ally in India, the sales of the lower version, the mainstream version (ROG Ally) were much higher than the premium version (ROG Ally X),” Su told technology shout on the sidelines of the opening of ASUS’s high-end retail experience store ROG Lab in Bengaluru on Thursday. “But this time, our predictions were wrong.”
The ROG Xbox Ally X is priced at Rs. India 1,14,990
ROG Xbox Ally X outsells Xbox Ally in India
According to Asus executives, ROG Xbox Ally X sales are “much higher” than Xbox Ally, despite a price difference of Rs 100. 45,000. Su said it was too early to reveal sales figures for the new console in India, but he confirmed demand for the Xbox Ally X exceeded supply. High-end devices account for the majority of sales of new Xbox-branded handheld devices in the country.
“Right now, we can’t keep up with demand,” Su said, calling development a “joyful burden.”
The new generation of Windows-based gaming handheld devices has seen a huge price increase this year. The MSI Claw A8, Lenovo Legion Go 2, and Xbox Ally X (all running Ryzen Z2 Extreme chips) cost over $1,000 in the United States. But even though pre-orders for the Xbox handheld device began in September, the Xbox Ally X is already sold out on Xbox stores worldwide.
Su said that perhaps in the field of handheld devices, pricing is not the “number one factor.”
“We understand that in this gaming console segment, people are willing to pay more than Rs 1 lakh to buy this machine.”
ASUS new store displays the company’s latest products
The new handheld device may also benefit from being part of the Xbox ecosystem. A considerable number of people in India own Xbox game consoles. They are all potential customers of ASUS. Su said these users can play games on Xbox at home and continue playing seamlessly outdoors using Xbox Ally in a backpack.
The new ROG Xbox Ally handheld enters a rapidly changing gaming hardware market that now includes traditional home consoles like PlayStation and Xbox, hybrid handhelds like the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and Windows-based handheld PCs from OEMs like Asus, Lenovo, and MSI. Last month, however, Valve expanded the market even further by launching Steam Machine, a PC/console hybrid that allows players to access their Steam library on their TV.
Just as the Steam Deck sparked the handheld race, the launch of Steam Machine in early 2026 could create a new PC/console hybrid segment. Is Asus, which already makes all-in-one PCs, looking at Valve’s new product and thinking it can do something similar?
“Actually, this is still a very new concept,” Su said. “Certainly as a company we are watching what all our competitors are doing, so we need to look further into how they operate.”
The response to Asus’ new GeForce RTX 50 series ROG laptops has also been “pretty good,” Su said. The company updated its gaming laptop lineup in May with Nvidia’s latest GPUs; Su claims that within the first 2-3 months of launch, Asus captured nearly 65% of the GeForce RTX 50 series laptop market in India.
Now, that share has dropped to 30-40% as more brands bring their competing products to the market. “It’s still a big share,” Su said. According to him, Asus has a first-mover advantage – it was the first OEM to introduce the new RTX 50 series laptop series to the Indian market when the global embargo on Nvidia was lifted. Su said this “first to market” strategy will continue.
But Asus has ambitious plans for its laptop business in India. The company is the market leader in gaming and the third-largest seller of consumer laptops in the United States, with an 18% market share. Asus sells nearly 1 million laptops a year here, but aims to double its annual sales to 2 million units by 2030.
Both ROG Xbox Ally models launch in a rapidly changing gaming hardware market
Su said that India’s PC penetration rate is about 10-12% and is bound to grow. Asus is aggressively expanding its retail presence in the country. Su on Thursday launched the country’s first ROG Lab store in Bengaluru, which is positioned to provide a premium retail experience to gamers and creators where they can test gaming laptops, Xbox Ally handhelds and other products themselves before committing to a purchase – much like Apple’s swanky new retail store in the country.
Su says ROG Lab is an “evolved version” of the traditional ROG store—less edgy, RGB gamer energy, and a more premium, brighter retail experience. Su said that about 30% of customers who buy ROG laptops don’t even play games. So the idea is to attract creators and high-end users in addition to gamers.
The new store displays ASUS’ latest series of ProArt series laptops, RTX 50 series ROG laptops and Xbox Ally handheld devices. It also comes with a gaming area – a 3v3 gaming desk setup where users can sit back and watch how well the laptop performs running games. The store also offers after-sales support, something Asus is working on improving.
Su said the company is also partnering with retail stores such as Croma, Reliance and Vijay Sales to bring its product lines into their stores. Offline retail accounts for about 70% of Asus’s sales in India, and the company plans to open more stores in 2026. Su said ROG Lab stores will target metropolitan cities first and plans to identify locations in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. According to him, most ordinary users want to try the product before spending money. ASUS’s retail strategy keeps this in mind. “You come here and we’ll tell you why you need this machine and how this machine solves your needs.”
