Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday reported its highest quarterly profit in 27 quarters due to robust sales of gaming products, commercial notebook computers and Chromebooks.
Net profit last quarter totaled NT$1.45 billion (US$48.05 million), a more than fivefold increase from NT$248.73 million a year earlier, company data showed.
Gross margin gained 1.58 percentage points annually to 11.1 percent and operating margin grew 0.74 percentage points to 1.54 percent, the data showed.
“The result demonstrates the company’s strong business momentum, stabilizing operations and profitability,” an Acer investor relations official said.
Cumulative profit in the first three quarters of this year totaled NT$1.75 billion, more than double the NT$833.31 million in the same period last year.
Revenue from gaming products last quarter jumped 168 percent year-on-year, driving contributions from the segment to exceed 10 percent of Acer’s total revenue, while revenue from commercial notebooks surged 40 percent annually and Chromebook revenue expanded 27 percent, Acer said.
Revenue from new businesses, including digital signage, grew 30 percent annually, it added.
The company announced that it would spend about NT$420 million to participate in AOpen Inc’s (建碁) private placement of 36.5 million shares at NT$11.5 per share.
The investment, part of a strategy to accelerate growth of Acer’s digital signage business, has gained approval from the boards of both companies and would result in Acer owning a 51 percent stake in AOpen.
Acer said it would participate in the management of AOpen’s operations to deepen their collaboration.
The cooperation would integrate Acer’s resources with AOpen’s expertise in media display hardware and software solutions to increase the scale of Acer’s digital signage business, Acer said.
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