Asustek and Acer See Rosy Performance in Feb. 2014

Seemingly impervious to seasonal factors, Taiwan's top two branded PC vendors, Asustek Computer Inc. and Acer Inc., both saw rosy performance in February.

Driven by its hot-selling Transformer Book T100 laptop and increasingly strong sales in China, Asustek raked in NT$36.613 billion in consolidated revenue in the month, up 4.33% month-on-month (MoM), or 13.3% year-on-year (YoY).

However, despite banner revenue in the month, Asustek is likely to experience a disappointing first quarter this year. At an investor conference held earlier, the company projected its shipment of notebook PCs, tablets and motherboards for the quarter to decline by 12.7%, 33.3% and 3.8%, respectively, to 4.8 million, 24,000 and 5 million units, compared to a quarter ago.

Institutional investors say that Asustek's performance, including operating margin and non-operating incomes, will likely significantly decline in the first quarter, when its consolidated revenue is estimated to reach between NT$95 billion and NT$100 billion, down 16-20% quarterly or 5-10% YoY. But, with new products to hit the market, the investors emphasized, the firm's profits will turn around in the second quarter.

In the meantime, Acer saw consolidated revenue for February rebound by nearly 14% over NT$21.468 billion in January to NT$24.47 billion, 12.93% less than a year ago though. For the past two months this year, the firm's cumulative consolidated revenue totaled NT$45.993 billion, diving 15.62% YoY.

Despite Acer still being mired in the aftermath of reported steep losses, Stan Shih, the firm's founder who just retook the chairmanship last year, stressed that the company's efforts on restructuring and integration for recovery have been directed in right direction, and heralded that its independently developed cloud platforms will be unveiled at Taipei Computex 2014, scheduled for June 3-7, to show potential  payoff.

In addition to cloud technology, the company has pinned hopes of recovery also on smartphones, and aims to attain annual shipment of 3-5 million units this year. (SC)