Acer Going Into "Attack Mode" in 2012, Says Chairman
Acer is attacking the consumer market on four fronts: ultrabooks, netbooks, tablets and smartphones.
On Tuesday, Acer chairman JT Wang warned the opposition that his company has moved away from purely defending its position in the market as seen in 2011. Instead, Acer is now in full attack position and poised to deal a vicious blow from four specific angles: ultrabooks, netbooks, tablets and smartphones. The chairman made his virtual war cry during Acer's ceremony for the Lunar New Year.
Acer's strongest blow, according to JT Wang, will be on the ultrabook front. The company will reportedly launch four new models in 2Q12 alone, and then an additional, unspecified number of ultrabooks sporting a tasty pricetag of $699 to $799 USD the following quarter. Acer president Jim Wong added that the company will adopt a passive strategy over pricing, that going forward, user experience and demand will become the major selling points rather than a competitive price tag.
In the tablet sector, Acer plans to steer clear of the high-end and low-end markets ruled by Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle Fire respectively. Instead, Acer will attack via the mid-range avenue priced between $299 and $499 USD. Currently this specific market has an estimated shipment scale of around 10 to 20 million units, but that may change once Apple reportedly introduces the iPad 3 which addresses both the mid-range and high-end markets.
As for Acer's netbook assault, the company assumes that developed countries will sway towards the ultrabook form factor. However the shipment volume of netbooks in emerging countries is still growing, allowing Acer to maintain its 45-percent worldwide market share. But eventually that will come to an end, as the netbook and ultrabook sectors are expected to merge into one happy segment within the next 18 to 24 months.
Tuesday’s report did not offer details surrounding Acer's smartphone assault, so stay tuned.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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batkerson Good for Acer, and the consumer. I personally like Acer laptops, esp. for the money, and have been very pleased with several owned by my family. Look forward to future good products from Acer, and to push the competition on price/features. Yippee!Reply -
sunflier ReplyAcer is now in full attack position and poised to deal a vicious blow from four specific angles: ultrabooks, netbooks, tablets and smartphones.
So now when I power the device on I gotta take cover?? -
huron I'll agree...good for the consumer when there is a battle for the mid-market (though many will likely be confused).Reply
I'm hoping for a quad tablet with a USB port soon (A510, I think) -
Shodar I like Acer. They've made me a small fortune fixing their laptops and netbooks... will definately never be out of work as long as they are in business.Reply -
Twitch016 I'm all for Acer making a splash, but I truly hope that by "user experience" they don't do what other tablet and smartphone manufacturers do in adding custom UIs to Android. The best "user experience" is the fastest to operate and be updated - Nexus-style "vanilla" Android.Reply -
blazorthon I've had a good experience with Acer products. A friend still has an Athlon 64 desktop from 2004 or 2005 running and another friend has a 2010 Acer laptop. I also find their website much easier to deal with than most other sites.Reply -
As far as the they have a lot of faulty laptops .. trust me, ALL of the manufacturers do. I can't speak of one issue we are currently facing with a brand but they ALL have faults.Reply