Acer Aims to Score Sales of 5 M. Tablet PCs in 2011

Taipei, March 18, 2011 (CENS)--The Taiwan-based Acer Inc., one of the world's top two PC vendors, plans to kick off promotion of tablet PCs worldwide by the end of this month at the earliest, and aims for sales of between 5 million and 10 million units to command a 20% share of the global market this year.

To square off against other PC vendors in the tablet-PC competition, the firm has kicked off the first stage of manufacturing, but noted that its first-stage output is not sufficient enough to match global retailers' demand now due partly to short supply of parts and components and capacity limitation, and partly to stronger-than-expected market demand for its devices.

Facing the upcoming Apple Inc.'s iPad 2G, which was just unveiled early this month as a blockbuster because of its high technical specifications at an incredibly low price, Acer has admitted that it can hardly compete well against Apple. However, the chairman J.T. Wang is confident of the firm's tablets outselling other competing models, hence ambitiously aiming for a 20% share of the global market this year.

Market observers have shown mixed views about Acer's tablet sales projection of between 5 million and 10 million units for this year, and mostly project the final sales number at around 4-5 million units based on an estimated total of 50-60 million units to be sold in the global market in the year.

The firm is scheduled to start promoting its tablets in Taiwan in early April in cooperation with several local telecom companies and 3C product retailers. The firm plans to quickly gain its market share by launching two Wifi models to attract consumers, as 3C products with Wifi are the mainstream in Taiwan's IT (information technology) device market.