Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s third-largest personal computer (PC) vendor, yesterday vowed to become the world’s No. 1 by 2011 as it continues innovations focusing on the notebook arena.
The company also unveiled the latest addition to its netbook family: the Aspire One 10.1-inch edition.
Scott Lin (林顯郎), president of Acer’s Taiwan operations, said he had high hopes for the low-priced netbook market, forecasting that aggregate global shipments from all vendors could reach 25 million to 30 million units this year and rise to 40 million units next year.
“In dollar terms, we’re talking about an estimated NT$500 billion [US$14.45 billion] global netbook market,” Lin said.
Without disclosing Acer’s netbook forecast for this year, Lin said the competition would be extremely tough this year as Hewlett-Packard Co (HP), Dell Inc and Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) enter the market.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Acer chairman J.T. Wang (王振堂) said netbooks now account for about 30 percent of Acer’s notebook sales, adding that Acer expects global sales of the mininotebooks to reach between 25 million and 35 million units next year, or 15 percent to 20 percent of its total computer sales.
Despite its initial success with the Aspire One 8.9-inch model, Acer said it was in no hurry to introduce its 10.1-inch version — which was launched one month late.
“The reason for the one-month delay is because we wanted to make sure all the top components are ready in this new model, from panel to battery and computer processing unit,” Lin said.
The new Aspire One 10.1-inch model retails at NT$17,200, while the company hopes to push down the price of the 8.9-inch model to around NT$11,800.
Lin said the new Aspire One model employs liquid-crystal-display panels produced by fifth-generation LCD fabs and are brighter and more saturated than Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩電腦) S101 10.2-inch netbook, which uses LCDs produced by a 3G fab.
Acer’s panel providers are AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Samsung Electronics Co, Lin said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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