Acer vows bounce back in summer

Acer chairman JT Wang at a presentation Thursday argued his belief that the company would return to profit in 2011. After posting two successive losses in the first half due to Apple's iPad cannibalizing netbooks and low-end notebooks, Wang expected a profit in the summer and an improvement yet again in the fall, the combination of which would put Acer back above water. The Taiwan PC builder had cut its 'abnormalities' in Europe from unsold notebooks and would have a much more efficient 10 to 20 days of channel inventory in the summer.

The executive added that Acer had a plan to recover from falling to fourth place in world PC market share. In trying to focus more on quality over quantity, Acer would ship its hinted at ultrabook in December. The category was defined by Intel as a way of getting Windows PC makers to emulate Apple's MacBook Air. Acer's timing may see it have only a marginal impact on 2011 but may help it compete in the notebook ultraportable space it has largely avoided.

Also coming were Android 3.2 tablets like the often delayed Iconia Tab A100 as well as a smartbook using an NVIDIA Tegra 2, presumably using Android.

Acer's predictions of a recovery have an uncertain prospect. The company's leadership, including Wang, has had a history of making short term predictions for recoveries that failed to materialize. From the time the iPad was released in spring 2010 and onwards, Wang and Acer had insisted the iPad would be finished within a few months only to be disproven. The introduction of Acer's own tablets and and an emphasis on higher-quality netbooks is expected to at least mitigate the problems the company has had.

Wang was more candid about the fate of the netbook than last year. Although the Windows-based notebook field would grow in the single digits in 2011, Wang estimated netbooks would shrink by 10 to 20 percent. Much of that loss will be Acer's as it was the market leader until at least the precipitous crash in netbook sales at the end of 2010.

By Electronista Staff