Acer Inc, the world's fourth-largest personal computer maker, posted the highest PC shipment growth in the last quarter among the top five makers, according to the findings of International Data Corp (IDC).
Acer shipped a total of 4.6 million PCs in the fourth quarter last year, demonstrating a strong growth of 37.8 percent from the same period in the previous year, and a rise of 35.5 percent over the previous three months, IDC said.
The Taiwanese maker narrowed its gap with No. 3 player Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), which Acer has vowed to overtake by the end of the year.
Acer improved its market share to 7.1 percent in the fourth quarter from 6 percent the third, while Lenovo's share dropped to 7.3 percent from 7.8 percent, the data showed.
"European markets, which contribute around 50 percent to Acer's PC sales, helped fuel its growth, as the fourth quarter is traditionally a busy period," said Molly Lin (
She said that Acer's growth would slow down in the first half of this year, which is a slow period in Europe and the US, and may only be able to overtake Lenovo in the final quarter because that period is usually marked by high consumer demand.
However, the target may be achieved earlier if Acer merges with smaller rival companies, she said.
"Acer is still weak in the US and Japan, so by merging with Gateway or Fujitsu, this would complement its strategies in these markets," Lin said.
Shares of Acer were up NT$0.6, or 0.99 percent, to NT$61.4 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
According to IDC, US computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) widened its lead as the world's top personal computer vendor in the fourth quarter last year, pressuring arch-rival Dell Inc.
HP experienced a sales growth of 23.8 percent last year and took a clear lead in worldwide shipment volume in the last three months of the year, it said.
Dell, meanwhile, did not recover from a slow third quarter and stumbled through to the end of the year with international growth dropping by 8.4 percent, IDC said.
HP basked in its sales triumph during a difficult year marred by a boardroom spying scandal and a soft US commercial market.
Sluggish sales of business computers hampered the US and Japanese markets at the end of last year, but demand for home computers and laptops remained strong, IDC said.
In the final quarter, 65.6 million PCs were shipped worldwide, with markets in Europe, Asia, Canada and Latin America expanding "at a healthy clip," IDC reported.
Overall PC shipments last year reached 228.6 million, 10 percent higher than the previous year, it said.
AI REVOLUTION: The event is to take place from Wednesday to Friday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s halls 1 and 2 and would feature more than 1,100 exhibitors Semicon Taiwan, an annual international semiconductor exhibition, would bring leaders from the world’s top technology firms to Taipei this year, the event organizer said. The CEO Summit is to feature nine global leaders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), Applied Materials Inc, Google, Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc, Microsoft Corp, Interuniversity Microelectronic Centre and Marvell Technology Group Ltd, SEMI said in a news release last week. The top executives would delve into how semiconductors are positioned as the driving force behind global technological innovation amid the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, the organizer said. Among them,
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
RSS