Acer Execs Trumpet Virtues Of Mobility

This was one of the main messages company executives drove home Friday at the Acer's Global Press Conference 2008 event here in the Hungarian capital, which drew a crowd of around 500 international journalists.

Gianfranco Lanci, CEO and president of Acer, said of the 300 million PCs Acer is on track to sell in 2008, 133 million of these are notebooks. However, notebook sales are growing at a much faster rate and will soon overtake desktop sales, Lanci noted.

From the first half of 2007 to the first half of 2008, Acer's notebook sales grew by 35.3 percent, compared to 1.7 percent for desktop PCs. If Acer can sustain this rate of growth, it's possible that it could oust HP from the top spot in the global notebook market by 2011, according to Lanci.

"Notebooks are a guaranteed source of strong growth for years to come," said Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president and president of Acer's IT Business Group.

Acer currently holds the number two spot in worldwide notebook market share, but the company has had a tough time gaining a foothold in the U.S. notebook market, where it's currently the number five player, according to Gartner.

However, Lanci insisted that U.S. growth is strong and that Acer is poised to make significant market share gains in the coming year. "I think we are picking up the pace to be number three next year," Lanci said, adding that this growth will stem mainly from the consumer and SMB segments.

Acer's mobility strategy goes beyond notebooks, and now includes smaller form factor PCs known as Netbooks. Acer in July launched its Aspire One Netbook, which comes in Windows and Linux versions, and that choice gives Acer a key point of differentiation in the market, Wong said.

Gartner says 10 million Netbooks will ship in 2008, but that number will jump to 25 million in 2009, and Aspire One will help position Acer for the coming wave of Netbook adoption. "Notebooks are now becoming the primary PC, and we're now starting to see Netbooks becoming the secondary PC," Lanci said.

Todd Swank, vice president of marketing at Nor-Tech, a Burnsville, Minn.-based system builder, has been closely watching the industry's transformation from standard desktop technology into all sorts of unique form factors that emphasize smaller sizes and better mobility.

"It's great to see Acer entering this market, because historically they've had high quality products at very aggressive price points, which should help this market segment grow even larger," said Swank.

Acer acquired Taiwan-based smartphone maker eTen in March, but has been reluctant to discuss particulars of a forthcoming device that some in the industry have taken to calling the 'A-phone.' Likewise, both Lanci and Wong said smartphones will be an important part of Acer's mobility strategy, but neither offered any concrete details.

Acer Group Chairman and CEO J.T. Wang wasn't at the event, but in a videotaped segment, Wang said that while the subprime crisis and high oil prices have rocked global economies, they haven't yet negatively affected the PC market. His message: People are still going to need PCs even if the economy continues to tank.

"We don't see a significant impact," said Wang. "Acer is growing at a healthy pace, and the market as a whole is growing simply because people need PCs for business, communications, and to enjoy life."