Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci drew a line in the sand Tuesday, telling Reuters that Acer is gunning for the No. 1 spot in the mobile PC market, a crown it plans to wrestle away from Hewlett-Packard (HP).
"We have a good chance to be number one within the next 12 months," Lanci told Reuters in an interview. "For sure we are going to exceed market (growth)" in 2010 sales.
In December, Acer overtook Dell to become the No. 2 spot in overall PC sales, a segment where HP is currently king. Now, according to Lanci, Acer plans to bump HP from the top rung.
Along with looking to supplant HP as mobile PC leader, Lanci said Acer plans to sell 2.5 million to 3 million smartphones in 2010, a number that will climb to 7 million to 8 million in 2011 and 12 million to 15 million in 2012, Reuters reported. Acer, which plans to make smartphones based on Microsoft Windows Mobile and Google Android, hopes to take a piece of the lucrative smartphone pie away from Nokia, Apple, and BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM).
Lanci added that Windows Phone 7, the mobile operating software Microsoft launched at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday, shows strong promise. Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series is a completely redesigned version of Windows Mobile built to appeal more to consumers, not just to business users.
"Compared with (version) 6.5 for sure we see some improvement, but there is more work to be done," he told Reuters. "The software is probably still a little bit too heavy, but they are on the right track.'
