Acer to Keep Launching Netbook PCs: Chairman Wang

Taipei, Sept. 18, 2012 (CENS)--In the face of tablet PCs encroaching on sales of netbooks worldwide, J.T. Wang, chairman of Acer Inc., a Taiwanese, globally leading brand vendor of PCs, stated that his company will keep launching netbook models in the future.

Since the launch of Apple Inc.'s iPad in 2010 ignited the market for tablet PCs, such emerging electronic devices have rapidly eaten into market shares of netbook PCs over the past few years. This forces most PC vendors, including Samsung, Dell and Lenovo, to consider giving up the diminishing market.

Acer's Taiwanese counterpart Asustek Computer Inc., which once rode on netbook PCs to achieve bigger shares of the global laptop market, also confirmed earlier that it will retire netbook PC production lines starting in the fourth quarter of this year, since such products, the company's CEO Jerry Shen said, have already fulfilled tasks for the development of the global PC industry.

Another factor prompting PC vendors to exit the netbook market is the lack of support from Microsoft and Intel. Accordingly, Microsoft doesn't launch any starter edition of Windows 8 for netbook PCs, while Intel will focus the development of its Atom processors on tablet PCs and smartphones. This has made netbook PCs even more unworthy of development.

But, Acer's chairman Wang is still optimistic about the market for netbook PCs. He said that consumer demand for such devices will continue growing in emerging countries, not to mention that netbook sales in developed countries still make up a majority of the global total at present. Therefore, Wang said promotion of netbook PCs will remain part of his company's product strategy in the short term.

The latest statistics issued by International Data Corp. (IDC), a global PC market researcher, show that global sales of netbook PC totaled 8.913 million units in the first half of this year, with 26.2% of which supplied by Acer. The sales volume is estimated to reach between 15 million and 16 million units for the whole year.

With most of its peers jumping out of the market, Acer, backed by strong brand recognition and huge outlets, is expected to take over most of the shares that they will leave to dominate this segment.

Shares by Top 5 Brands in Global Market for Netbook PCs in Q2
Ranking	Brand	Sales Volume	Market Share
1	Acer	1.182 million units	26.2%
2	Asus	1.019 million units	22.6%
3	HP	413,000 units	9.2%
4	Samsung	407,000 units	9.0%
5	Canaima	293,000 units	6.5%

Source: International Data Corp.