TAIPEI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Taiwan's Asustek, pioneer of lowcost netbook PCs, said on Friday it would incur losses of up to T$2 billion ($60 million) in the fourth quarter of 2008 due to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.

The loss should be in the range of T$1.5 billion to T$2 billion, Asustek's Chief Financial Officer David Chang told Reuters.

Asustek, which has a large presence in Europe, said the euro's weakness against the U.S. dollar was a factor in the foreign-exchange losses, but the firm was already taking measures to prevent such losses in the current quarter.

"We shouldn't see such a loss this time around. Inventory control issues accounted for a large percentage of our fourth-quarter losses, and foreign exchange issues only take up about 20 percent of our total losses," Chang said.

The company said last week it would report a negative operating margin for the October to December quarter of 2008, and that it had fallen short of its previous shipment targets for motherboards, notebooks and low-cost netbooks.

Analysts have been largely bearish on the company in recent weeks, with major research houses such as Citigroup, UBS, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs downgrading Asustek after it sounded its fourth-quarter profit warning.

Asustek shares fell almost 60 percent in 2008, lagging a 46 percent decline on the benchmark TAIEX share index. Its shares were up 1.14 percent in mid-morning trade, outperforming the big board's 0.29 percent climb.

Separately, crosstown rival Acer, which also has a significant presence in Europe, said it is not affected by foreign exchange issues.

"I wouldn't say our exposure is zero. Obviously, zero would be ideal, but there will be no significant effect on our results last year," said an Acer publicist.

(Reporting by Kelvin Soh; Editing by Keiron Henderson) Keywords: ASUSTEK/ (kelvin.soh@thomsonreuters.com; +886 2 2508 0815; Reuters Messaging: kelvin.soh.reuters.com@reuters.com)

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