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Asus Chief Financial Officer David Chang says that the company is selling close to 1 million Nexus 7 tablets a month.

Although Google has not released the official sales figures for its 7-inch Nexus 7 tablet, following Tuesday's declaration of Asus' third-quarter earnings yesterday the Taiwanese electronics maker managed to beat the most optimistic estimates. Asus said that its notebook computer range was performing steadily at roughly 5 million shipments per month, but tablet sales jumped from 800,000 in the second quarter to 2.3 million shipments in the third quarter.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Cheng said:

At the beginning, it was, for instance, 500K units a month, then maybe 600, 700K. This latest month, it was close to one million.

Asus expects that in the fourth quarter tablet sales will rise by 13 percent to 2.6 million shipments, and may reach as many as 10 million units in 2013. The number is still a long way off from Apple's sales of 14 million iPads in the third quarter, but it's a start.

Cheng's comments follow Google's release of two new Nexus devices -- a 10-inch tablet and smartphone -- to join the 7-inch Nexus 7, which has a base-model price of $199. The Nexus 10 tablet is priced at $399 for 16GB model, and the 32GB model costs $499. The new Android-based Nexus 4 smartphone, meanwhile, will retail for $299. The new devices will go on sale in mid-November.