Acer Inc, the world's fifth-largest maker of personal computers, aims to boost its share of the notebook computer market in Germany to 20 percent next year by signing up more resellers, the company's German unit head said.
Acer Computer GmbH, which last year overtook Fujitsu Siemens Computers Holding BV as the top seller of the product in Germany, had 15.4 percent of the market in the second quarter, according to market researcher IDC. In Germany, Acer is adding as many as 300 dealers a month that buy its products for resale to companies.
"Next year we'll break 20 percent in at least one quarter," unit head Oliver Ahrens said in an interview in Berlin. "The last company to achieve that would have been Toshiba at end of the '90s. Stable growth is more important than creating peaks."
Taiwan-based Acer doubled second-quarter shipments of notebook computers in Germany to almost 100,000 units from a year ago, outpacing a 26 percent expansion in the German market during the period. By value, the nation's laptop computer market will expand 8 percent next year to US$4.2 billion, according to Germany's Bitkom technology industry group.
Ahrens said the company's Hamburg-based unit will stay profitable while it's adding market share. Taipei-based Acer had sales of NT$157.7 billion (US$4.6 billion) for 2003, of which 60 percent was generated in Europe. Germany and Italy are Acer's two largest European computer markets.
Including sales of desktop computers and servers, Acer ranked No. 4 in Germany during the second quarter, with an 8.2 percent market share, lagging Fujitsu Siemens, Hewlett-Packard Co and domestic manufacturer Medion AG, according to IDC.
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