Acer announced earlier in the week that they have moved into third place in terms of global PC sales. Not only have their sales numbers increased, they also announced that they had a $14.5 million profit in this quarter. However what is very interesting is that it definitely seems that manufacturers based in Asia are gaining ground on their Western counterparts. For the record, before you argue, all manufacturers (even the mighty Apple) have a majority of their manufacturing done in Asia (in particular South East Asia).
Acer is the only manufacturer to have made their unhappiness with Microsoft Surface known to the public. Acer is the brand that has the most to lose at the moment. Their tablets are not overly popular (is anything not by Apple successful in the tablet space?) and their desktop PC’s are steadily losing ground to Lenovo.
So, if Acer is number 3, who rules the roost in desktop computing? In first place is HP (which I believe will have its lead eroded by bad decision making and lack of leadership) and second place is Lenovo. IBM made a great business decision to sell their PC division to Lenovo but I wonder if they sometimes suffer from sellers regret?…
In South Africa, Lenovo has announced that they are to enter the mobile phone environment soon with smartphones. No announcement from Acer which leads me to believe that their focus is on Desktop PC’s and notebooks.
So, does Acer feel the need to respond to Microsoft’s challenge with Surface by inquiring whether HP wants to sell their PC division to them? It is becoming clear that you need to own the entire ecosystem in the computing space to be successful. HP will look to offload their PC division at some point as it is hurting their bottom-line. Is Acer the phantom company mentioned by the press in relation to rumours of HP selling their PC unit? It can’t be Lenovo as global legislation would stop the acquisition of HP’S PC division in a heart beat. The market is evolving and truth be told the Post PC world, mentioned by Apple I think is more than just marketing talk..
So is Acer the sleeping giant?
