Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s fourth-larget PC maker, yesterday said high-ranking executives would take a voluntary salary cut of 30 percent from this month.
The cuts come following the company posting a record-high loss of NT$20.58 billion (US$684 million) for last year due to poor product strategies.
That was the third consecutive unprofitable year for Acer after losing NT$2.91 billion in 2012 and NT$6.6 billion in 2011.
To speed up its turnaround efforts, Acer said it would write off NT$1.3 billion in raw material inventory loss last quarter, resulting from its poor inventory management, company spokesperson and chief financial officer Eva Ho (何一華) said in a statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
That added to the already weak quarterly results for last quarter due to the company’s poor product strategies and a one-time restructuring expense of NT$150 million.
In the final quarter of last year, Acer lost NT$7.63 billion, an improvement from a loss of NT$13.12 billion in the third quarter last year.
“We have made mistakes in allocating company resources,” Acer said in a statement.
“We have overestimated [market demand for] Ultrabooks and notebooks with touch panels,” the company added. “The market demand has lagged our expectations.”
Acer said it would improve its product development and inventory management abilities in the future.
For the whole of last year, Acer’s revenue contracted 16.2 percent to NT$360.19 billion from NT$429.63 billion in 2012.
Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) analyst Vincent Chen (陳豊丰) said earlier this week that he expected Acer to make a profit again next quarter at the earliest.
To help the company return to the black, Acer last month appointed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacutring Co (台積電) former vice president Jason Chen (陳俊聖) as the company’s new president and CEO.
Acer shares dropped 0.78 percent to NT$19 yesterday. The stock tumbled 28.57 percent last year, versus the TAIEX’s gain of 12 percent during the same period.
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