Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s No. 2 personal computer maker, yesterday reported its strongest quarterly earnings in 11 quarters after the company outpaced rivals in gaining shares amid recovering PC demand from economic recession.
During the quarter ending Dec. 31, Acer’s earnings rose about 25 percent to N$3.51 billion (US$109 million), from NT$2.81 billion in the same period of 2008, a company statement said. That was the highest level since the first quarter of 2007, during which Acer earned NT$5.66 billion.
Operating profits expanded 25 percent to NT$4.96 billion last quarter, from NT$3.98 billion in the same period of 2008, hitting a record high, the statement said.
That brought net income for the whole of last year to NT$11.35 billion, or NT$4.3 per share, down 3 percent from 2008, the company said. Operating income rose 9 percent to NT$15.33 billion last year, from NT$14.07 billion in 2008.
Acer continued to outpace shipment growth by Dell and larger rival Hewlett-Packard Co by offering consumers low-cost Aspire One netbooks and TimeLine notebooks with longer battery life.
Laptop shipments will climb to 40 percent this year and Acer will expand server sales as it seeks revenue growth of 15 percent, company president Gianfranco Lanci said in an interview on Friday.
“They did a very good job balancing market share gains without giving up profit growth,” said Vincent Chen (陳豊丰), of Yuanta Securities (元大證券) who rates the stock “buy” .
It “should be another pretty good year for the notebook market,” he said.
Acer said its PC shipments soared 41.5 percent to 12.19 million units in the final quarter of last year, compared with 8.61 million untis in the same period of the previous year, helping the company expand its global market share to 13.5 percent from 11.7 percent, market researcher Gartner Inc’s tally showed.
Overall, Acer shipped about 39.9 million units of PCs, including notebook and desktop computers, last year, up 29.4 percent from the 30.83 million units it shipped in 2008, Gartner said.
Acer, along with HP and Toshiba, benefited from strong consumer demand, Gartner said in a statement released on Jan. 13.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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