Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s second-largest PC maker, yesterday offered optimistic sales guidance for the current quarter, saying revenue would rise by 5 to 10 percent from three months earlier on growing demand from China and emerging markets.
The company also expects sales to pick up by 10 to 15 percent next year from this year, as demand from emerging markets remains healthy and Europe is slowly recovering, chief executive Gianfranco Lanci told an investors’ conference in Taipei.
“The emerging markets will continue to lead the market’s growth,” he said.
STABLE MARGINS
With average selling prices likely to remain stable in the coming year, Lanci said he did not expect a change in gross margins.
Acer maintained a gross margin of 10 percent in the third quarter and the previous quarter.
By product breakdown, shipments for notebooks and netbooks are forecast to expand by 20 to 25 percent next year from this year, while desktop PC shipments would increase by 10 to 15 percent, Lanci said.
“Cannibalization of computer sales from tablet PCs is limited mostly to the US,” he said. “Traditional notebook computers are still in demand.”
Acer accounts for 13 percent of the global PC market and aims to overtake its US rival Hewlett-Packard Co next year, company chairman Wang Jeng-tang (王振堂) said yesterday, citing market researchers’ data.
Wang attributed the slowing demand for netbooks partly to a lack of innovation that could be overcome with technological improvement.
Acer’s guidance is rosier than international industry surveys. Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel Corp, the world’s largest chip maker based in California, said in Taipei on Thursday that the PC segment would grow between 12 percent and 18 percent next year.
TABLETS
While playing down the impact of tablet PCs, Acer is slated to launch its own tablet computer in New York on Nov. 23.
Earlier this week, Lanci told the Dow Jones Newswire in an interview that Acer tablets, priced from US$299 to US$699, would use Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform, while the next batch of tablets would use Google Inc’s Android platform.
Wang said Acer would remain focused on hardware as its main business, while working harder in software and services to enhance its brand value.
Wang also introduced Acer clear.fi — software the company will build into all new consumer products with processing capacity from the first quarter of next year onward.
Wang said the company was close to making a decision as to which city in western China will be the location of a major operation center.
To boost its competitive edge in China, Acer teamed up with Chinese PC maker Founder Technology Group Corp in August by paying up to US$70 million to use its brand name for the next seven years.
Wang said Acer would also seek to strengthen its presence in Brazil and India.
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