Acer Inc forecast a 40 percent gain in sales next year, helped by a return to US store shelves and rising demand in China and Europe.
"We are making breakthroughs in major markets," Wang Chen-tang (
"We want to maintain 40 percent growth for several years," he said.
Acer may rise two places to become the fifth-biggest PC maker next year, overtaking Japan's Toshiba Corp and NEC Corp, Wang said.
The company signed agreements with retailers such as Best Buy Co in the US and the UK's Dixon Group Plc.
It also boosted its presence in China, using manufacturing partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (
The company's sales of desktop computers in China, the world's second-biggest PC market, will double in the fourth quarter from the first, Wang said. Acer ranked eighth in China in the third quarter, behind market leader Legend Group Ltd (聯想), which had a 28 percent share, researcher IDC said.
"Acer is more focused on the consumer business," said Kitty Fok, an analyst with market researcher International Data Corp in Hong Kong.
"That's where they'll need to compete with local competitors in China," she said.
In the first 10 months of this year, Acer's sales rose by more than 60 percent from a year earlier to NT$61.1 billion (US$1.8 billion), based on the company's monthly revenue reports.
The company started selling computers under its own brand name in the US this year, four years after losses caused by rising inventory costs caused it to withdraw from the market.
Best Buy, the biggest US electronics chain, agreed to take orders for Acer notebook computers, which the company will ship directly to buyers. The agreement will enable Acer to emulate the direct-sales model of Dell Inc, the world's biggest PC maker, and help it control inventory costs.
Acer has similar distribution agreements with Paris-based Carrefour SA, Europe's largest retailer, and Dixons, Britain's largest consumer electronics retailer.
Acer has reduced costs by moving manufacturing of its products to Hon Hai, the nation's biggest maker of electronics for other companies. Acer's gross margin, or the percentage of sales left after production costs, rose to 13.6 percent last year from 9.5 percent in 2000.
The improvement came even as US PC makers cut prices, squeezing margins for rivals such as Toshiba, which blamed discounts by Hewlett-Packard Co for a fiscal first-quarter loss at its PC unit.
Still, Acer faces stiffer competition in the US, where Wal-Mart Stores Inc plans to start selling its own brand of notebook computers, the New York Post reported on Tuesday. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, declined to comment on the report.
In Europe, Wang forecast Acer will become the biggest notebook PC seller as early as the end of this year. The company, which said it unseated Dell to become No. 2 in Europe earlier this year, has gained market share from No. 1 HP. Acer may use Hon Hai to start selling desktop PCs in Europe, Wang said.
Acer's European sales grew 33 percent in the first half, compared with 7 percent growth for the overall market, IDC's Fok said. Europe accounts for about 60 percent of Acer's sales.
Acer is counting on new home-networking products that it will start selling in the first quarter to help it take market share from bigger PC makers.
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