TH Tung, Ted Hsu, Wayne Hsieh, and MT Liao founded ASUS on 2 April 1990 in Taipei, Taiwan — all four founders worked as computer engineers for Acer. The company explains the name ASUS as originating from Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. The new organization used only the last four letters of the word in order to give the resulting name a high position in alphabetical listings.
In 2008, shipments from ASUS, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), Gigabyte Technology, and Micro-Star International (MSI) totaled 104.86 million devices. ASUS led with 52 million units, followed by ECS with 20 million, MSI with 18 million, and Gigabyte with 16.6 million.