Taiwan-based PC maker Asus has published its financial report for the fourth quarter of 2008, stating it made losses of NTD2.798 billion — the first loss since the founding of the company 19 years ago.

Asus says its poor performance in the fourth quarter of 2008 was mainly attributed to the recession affecting the entire global market, leading to the increase of inventory of such products as monitors. In addition, the depreciation of some monetary exchange rates brought more negative effects.

The company says it is expected to make profits in the first quarter of 2009, during which, Asus aims to ship 800,000 notebooks and 4.5 to 5 million motherboards. Moreover, the company will take measures to reduce its inventory and shorten the inventory period by 20 days to between 40 and 50 days before the end of the first quarter of 2009.

Jerry Shen, CEO of Asus, has made a public apology to Asus's investors for the losses in the fourth quarter 2008 and emphasizes that the company has adopted a series of internal streamline policies, including cutting 10% management costs this year.