Digitimes reports that Acer is expecting its monthly LCD TV sales to reach 2,000 units this year. That would be a 300-400% increase from 2005’s 600-700 a month sales. But personally, what’s really interesting in that news release is the possiblity of “…a new 37-inch LCD TV model in February.”
Read more at Digitimes.
Another step forward for Acer as QBE – Australia’s largest international general insurance & reinsurance group – contracts Acer to supply “…a wide range of hardware — notebooks, desktops, servers, tablets PCs, LCD displays, handheld devices and Wyse thin-client terminals.”
Read more at ZDNet.
The past year has seen Acer push itself deeper into the consumer markets, whether in its highest growth market – Europe – or in its local market in Taiwan. Now, it seems Acer is set on doing the same to the enterprise market, with its local market as the first target.
The goal Acer has set for this is rather direct: To balance the proportion of sales between the consumer and enterprise segments (the consumer segment took home 63 percent of Acer’s total sales in Taiwan last year).
Read more at Taipei Times.
With the release of the Acer Ferrari notebook series and LCD monitors, as well as discussions between both parties over deeper collaboration over the past year, it was probably expected that Acer would soon become one of the official sponsors of Ferrari’s F1 team. With this, Acer’s role has broadened from a mere Official Partner of the Scuderia Ferrari (held since 2003) to an Official Sponsor as well. The sponsorship deal itself is a three-year deal that will last till the end of 2008. This piece of news also comes in the wake of Vodafone’s decision to end its sponsorship of the Ferrari F1 team to become the main sponsor of the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team in 2007.
(Source: Ferrari)
Another reason why we should dump our old notebooks for the new just cropped up: 3G wireless capability will be dropping by – via the Acer Aspire and TravelMate series. Among the first notebooks with the upgradable (to the next-generation HSDPA standard) 3G wireless technology include the Acer TravelMate 4260 and Aspire 5650 – both Napa-powered notebooks.
Read more at Pocket-lint.co.uk.
2005 was not only a year of exceptional growth in the global PC market. It was also the first year Europe saw more PC shipments than the United States. And Acer has most probably benefited the most from this given its focus on the European market. Most of Acer’s strong growth in 2005 can indeed be attributed to the European market.
But I doubt the growth Europe saw last year (17.1 percent vs. North America’s 7.5 percent) will be sustained this year. Yes, Europe and America will remain the largest markets for some time to come, but Asia and Latin America’s growth will probably be the growth markets. But with the data coming in (26% growth in shipments to Asia and Latin America in 2005), I’m probably stating the obvious.
Read more about this at ZDNet.
With the previous article by ZDNet highlighting how the exceptional growth in the global PC market will plateau this year (2006), this press release by IDC announcing the superb 17% year on year growth in the PC market in 4Q 2005 could probably be the last we will hear for some time to come.
A short excerpt:
“The market continues a fundamental shift toward mobile computing that is contributing significantly to top-line growth,” said David Daoud, research manager Personal Computing and PC Tracker Programs “Portable PCs are expected to capture a record 38% of Client PC shipments in the United States this quarter, while incentive strategies for Desktops based on low prices alone may have reached their limits. Still, there were ample opportunities in the fourth quarter for vendors who offered desktops as home digital appliances, a trend we anticipate could reignite the desktop market in 2006 and 2007 with the launch of Microsoft Vista, Intel’s Viiv, and PC vendors’ expected endorsement of these initiatives.”
If somehow the desktop market does get “reignited” through Vista and Viiv, we might actually see the recent prediction of a growth plateau in the global PC market turned on its head.
Read the whole news release at Business Wire.
Over at ZDNet, there’s a news piece on the upcoming slowdown in growth in the PC market that saw spectacular growth last year. Dell – the top PC maker, retains its position in midst of steady, but small growth. For Acer, we have:
Acer, No. 4 worldwide, saw shipments grow by 52.5 percent in the fourth quarter and 53.9 percent for the year. Acer now has 4.1 percent of the global market and has been the fastest-growing large PC maker for the past two years. Much of the company’s growth comes from Europe.
If these statistics continue, we might actually see Acer succeed in its vow to jump into the coveted Top 3 of the world’s brand-PC market this year.
Read the whole article at ZDNet.
