Acer may be doing well overseas with the Taiwanese Company now challenging Dell and Hewlett-Packard for the top spots, but in Australia it is a totally different story with third quarter results showing that the Company is failing to get traction in both the notebook and PC markets and is one of the worst performing subsidiaries for the fast growing Company.
In the third quarter Acer Australia, struggled to hit their budgets according to insiders. Robin Tang Marketing Manager Australia for Acer has refused to disclose his third quarter numbers, despite IDC and GFK data showing that the Company is struggling to mirror the performance of Acer in Europe where the Company is #1 in the fast growing notebook market.
Retailer Dick Smith, who recently ramped up their notebook and netbook offerings, has chosen to move away from selling Acer notebooks. Instead they are selling Toshiba, HP and Dell models.
Problems at Acer have been ongoing, earlier this year, Bert Noah, the General Manager of Acer’s PC and notebook division quit the company after a falling out with Acer Australia Managing Director Charles Chung over the running of the key PC and notebook division.
Also falling out with Chung, who has been described as a “control freak”, was Raymond Vardanega the former marketing director of Acer who quit 18 months ago. It was the second time that the former marketing director had walked out on the company.
Last week the Company launched a new 15.6″ 3D notebook with LED backlighting. The screen turns 2D content into 3D content which require passive 3D glasses to see.
The Company is also making another attempt to grab market share in the high-end multimedia and gaming notebook market with a new 18.4-inch notebook that has an Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce GTS 250M graphics with 1 GB of dedicated video RAM and Blu-ray optical drive.
Last year Acer went after the PC gaming market in an effort to topple the Dell owned Alienware.
They launched a “monster” Predator gaming PC that had up to 8GB of memory, 1TB driver and the option of three high performance graphic cards and a Blu ray drive. The PC was a failure and failed to get widespread traction in the PC gaming market.
Overseas Acer is delivering excellent profits and market share with one senior executive in Taiwan telling ChannelNews that “the Australian market is very small. Their poor performance is not affecting our global push where senior executives are focusing their efforts”.
According to Gartner Acer’s market share increased to 15.4 percent, compared with Dell’s 12.8 percent. Hewlett-Packard which took the lead from Dell in 2006 remains the world’s biggest PC maker. Acer’s shipments surged 25.6 percent in the last quarter, the fastest growth among the top PC makers, buoyed by sales of low-cost netbooks.
According to Bloomberg, “Acer can now aim for the No. 1 position,” said Bamboo Lin, an analyst at Sinopac Securities “Even though it’s gaining market share, it’s not compromising on its margins, so this is good for the firm.”
Acer said it expects shipments to rise in the fourth quarter from the preceding three months, without giving estimates.
