Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s No. 4 PC brand, aims to become one of the nation’s top five handset vendors within three years after gaining a foothold in overseas markets such as Thailand, Acer chief executive officer Jason Chen (陳俊聖) said yesterday.
Acer has made progress in expanding its new mobile phone business overseas as it has seized the No. 3 position in Thailand and also in Belgium, Chen told a media briefing.
The company has expanded its mobile phone business to 31 countries, well ahead of its goal of reaching 25 nations this year and more than doubling the 12 countries it was selling its handsets to last year.
Photo: CNA
“Taiwan is our home market. Our next step is to become one of the largest brands here,” Chen said.
As long as the company offers high-specification phones at affordable prices, Acer would “occupy a [significant] place in the market,” he said.
Acer has set a target to ship 5 million mobile phones this year, a jump of from more than 1 million units from last year.
Regional Acer president Towny Huang (黃鐘鋒) said the company’s target was to grab the No. 5 position in Taiwan within the next two to three years, which would be a tough battle as it has to top China’s Xiaomi Corp (小米) and US brand InFocus.
The executive’s remarks came as Acer yesterday unveiled its latest 4G long-term evolution (LTE) smartphone, dubbed Liquid X1 and carrying a price tag of NT$7,990.
The mid-range phone is equipped with MediaTek Inc’s (聯發科) octa-core 4G LTE processor and a 5.7-inch high-definition screen.
Vice president of MediaTek’s smartphone business unit Jeffrey Ju (朱尚祖) said that Acer was the first domestic brand to adopt the company’s octa-core processor.
Other domestic brands are also developing new phones powered by MediaTek’s octa-core processors, Ju added.
Acer’s new phone is made by Pegatron Corp (和碩), which also makes iPhones for Apple Inc.
Due to better-than-expected demand, Acer’s phones have been in short supply and the supply constraint is not yet fully resolved, mostly due to a shortage of key components, Chen said.
In Taiwan, Acer can only meet 60 percent of the total orders it has received, primarily because of the tightening supply of LCD panels, Huang said.
Chen dismissed speculation that Acer has piled up excessive inventories because of weak demand for its phones.
He said the shortage is real and not the result of a “hunger marketing” strategy.
“We are very conservative about [building] inventories… Inventory write-offs are not good for the company,” he said.
Acer shares fell 1.99 percent to NT$24.65 yesterday in Taipei trading.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
RSS