Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s top brand notebook maker, yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Chinese PC vendor Founder Group (北大方正集團), aiming to secure a strong foothold in a market where demand for PCs is growing.
“Both parties intend to jointly involve Acer in the planning, development and design of Founder-brand products for more competitive offerings, such as notebooks, netbooks, mobile Internet devices and e-readers,” a statement released by Acer yesterday said.
The signing took place in Beijing yesterday, where top Acer executives, including chairman Wang Jeng-tang (王振堂) and chief executive Gianfranco Lanci, held a global product launch.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
The firms will join forces to tackle the PC market in China.
According to the statement, Founder has comprehensive distribution channels and is strong on marketing PCs in China, especially in rural areas and suburban cities, as well as having a good rapport with corporate and government clients.
“Acer and Founder will be able to build up strong synergy on product offering, supply chain and channel coverage,” the statement said.
More collaboration could be on the cards in the future as both firms are mulling partnerships in the areas of intellectual property rights, supply chain and after-sales services, the statement said.
Founder chief executive Li You (李友) told Sina.com (新浪網) that the partnership would not involve any form of share exchange or merger and that both brands would operate individually, while creating synergies in marketing and technical exchanges.
China contributed 5 percent to Acer’s total revenues in the first quarter, which is the same portion as the corresponding period last year, company data showed.
Wang told investors last month that Acer aims to “break through the bottleneck in China” by dedicating more effort to three aspects of its approach — tailor-made products for the Chinese market, expanding its channel partners and boosting its brand awareness.
Lanci said Acer is targeting doubling revenues in China to US$1.5 billion this year.
Acer also debuted its first e-reader and tablet PC in Beijing yesterday.
A number of content providers have been brought in for the six-inch, 2GB e-reader “LumiRead.”
These include Barnes & Noble Inc of the US, Germany’s Libri.de, as well as Founder. The company said French and Italian readers would be able to read books in their own languages in the near future, thanks to other agreements that are almost ready to be formalized.
Acer also unveiled a touch-screen seven-inch tablet PC that runs on the Android operating system.
In related news, ViewSonic Corp yesterday showcased its “JinYong Reader (金庸機),” an e-reader that works in collaboration with publishing firm Yuan-Liou Publishing Co (遠流出版).
The JinYong Reader comes with all 36 martial arts titles by renowned Hong Kong-based author Louis Cha (查良鏞) — better known as Jin Yong — in electronic format and will be available in Taiwan at the end of next month and in China in the third quarter, Mike Chen (陳正訓), ViewSonic’s senior product development manager, said at a product launch.
With a price tag of about NT$15,000 (US$468), the JinYong Reader will target the world’s 1.5 billion Mandarin speakers, the company said.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
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Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
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