Why is the Asus Eee Box expensive?

For the price of Php 24,900 a lot of people are asking me why the recently launched Asus Eee Box is a little expensive in the Philippines (even if Asus bundled a 16″ LCD monitor with it)?
Back in June, when I first reported that the Asus Eee Box will come out this month, I predicted a retail price of just Php12,000. A similarly spec’ed desktop PC will hover around Php13,000 in price due to additional WiFi and Bluetooth connections.
However, Asus bundled with it a small 16″ LCD monitor which retails in the market for as low as Php7,000 for AOC models and Php7,500 for Samsung models. Subtract the cost of the LCD and you end up buying the Eee Box alone for Php17,500.
What can you buy with Php17,500?
Athlon 64 LE1640 @ 2.6GHz - Php2,4102GB DDR2 SDRAM - Php1,960250GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 8MB -Php2,680MSI K9N6SGM-V NVidia V-PCie/S/L/R - Php2,250Inno3D 7300GT 512MB DDR2 128bit DVI - Php2,510Samsung 20x DVDRW lightscribe - Php1,440WiFi Dongle - Php900Bluetooth Dongle - Php250———————-Total - Php14,400
Of course, the Asus Eee Box will have the advantage of a smaller form factor and lower power consumption. I have this idea that Asus’ Eee line of PCs and laptops want to be perceived as small and affordable. The introduction of the Asus Eee PC line showed that almost anyone can now afford to have a laptop.
The price of the Eee Box does not give that impression that anyone can now afford to have a desktop PC. It’s still cheaper to go and buy from local PC retail stores. I might be wrong about what Asus want to achieve here or it’s just that local taxes and VAT pumped the extra Php5,500 into the price.
At that price point, I doubt Asus could sell a whole lot of Eee Box. What more that you can get a whole PC set w/ monitor for under Php15,000.
The information from:www.electronics-in-china.com