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Acer Inc's Wang notebook cashes in on star's appeal

New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming teaches 10-year-old Wang Jie-yi how to pitch during a charity event sponsored by a fastfood restaurant chain yesterday in Taipei. PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, AP

New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民), dubbed "the pride of Taiwan" by fans and media has proven his charm does not only work on the baseball field -- a number of local firms have been fast to cash in on his appeal in unrelated areas.

A convenience store chain recently released a limited edition stamp collection featuring Wang, while an automobile vendor also announced last week that it has signed Wang up to be its charity spokesman.

And technology firms are not missing out on the Wang phenomenon either.

Acer Inc, the world's fourth-largest personal computer maker, unveiled last Wednesday a notebook computer model tailor-made for Wang fans.

"Wang and Acer are both from Taiwan, and each has made a name internationally," Acer's chairman Wang Jeng-tang (王振堂) said last week while promoting the Wang notebook computer.

Wang depicts the spirit of "aggressiveness, sporty physique and masculinity," and is always gearing up for world-class competitions -- similar characteristics to Acer's image, he said.

The PC maker first signed up Wang in July last year to represent its notebook computer products in Taiwan and has renewed the contract through to next June.

Wang was paid NT$10 million (US$309,023) last year to lend his name to the Acer brand, and that sum increased an additional 10 percent this year.

"We compete closely with Asustek in Taiwan, and this time, we outdid it in marketing with the right bet on Wang," Wang Jeng-tang said.

With Wang speaking for Acer laptops, the company has managed to reach into the pockets of younger users with the average age dropping by 3.7 years, he said.

Sales also increased 10 percent after Wang came on board, he said.

Though Acer outshines Asustek in the world PC market, the company closely trails Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) in the local market.

In the last quarter, Asustek sold 83,527 laptops and had a market share of 36.6 percent, up from 80,609 units and 32 percent in the same period last year, statistics from the International Data Corp Taiwan, a research firm, showed.

In contrast, Acer sold 58,900 portable computers and had a market share of 25.8 percent, down from 80,124 units and 31.8 percent the same period last year.

Acer is now banking on the newly launched Wang notebook to win back market share in the traditionally busy fourth quarter.

Retailing at NT$42,900, the product comes in a dark blue cover and features a standalone graphics card, a 14.1-inch widescreen, a 1.3-megapixel Web camera, a 120 gigabyte hard drive and a 64-bit Core 2 Duo processor.

The computer comes complete with Wang's portrait and autograph on the machine and mouse.

Acer said it will only produce 20,000 of the notebook computers and they will be sold exclusively in Taiwan. The computer is available at the IT Month exhibition, which opened on Saturday at the Taipei World Trade Center and will run through to Sunday. A third of the Wang notebooks have been reserved for sale at the exhibition.

A total of 1,000 Wang laptops had already been sold by the end of the first day of IT Month, the company said.

The company expects all the notebooks to be sold by Lunar New Year, said Scott Lin (林顯郎), Acer's president for Taiwan and Hong Kong operations.

But Asustek said it will not follow in Acer's footsteps to find a spokesman in Taiwan.

There are various factors in finding the perfect model to speak for a brand, and Asustek already enjoys a good reputation here, said Kevin Lin (林福能), Asustek's sales director.

"The Wang hype could be short-lived," an analyst said.
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