Acer began its Acer Day campaign on July 20 and has expanded the promotion to another 20 countries in Pan Asia including Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Brunei, Mongolia and Cambodia, according to Andrew Hou, president of Acer Pan Asia Pacific (PAP).
Hou noted that Acer's sales in second-quarter 2018 continued the momentum from the first and enjoyed a double-digit percentage growth on year and the performance in the second half is also expected to be better than the first. However, the overall on-year growth for the second half may drop to only less than 10% because the Acer Day campaign in 2017 increased the comparison base.
The growth in the second half is expected to be contributed primarily from gaming and enterprise product lines.
Acer's Predator e-sport tournament, which was hosted the first time in 2017 in Asia Pacific, will also take place in the second half of 2018.
In the first quarter, Acer saw a 13% on-year revenue growth from the Pan Asia Pacific region with the amounts from countries including Thailand, the Philippines, India and Indonesia all seeing dramatical growths, driven by strong demand for enterprise and gaming products.
With the growing sales, Acer's revenue proportion from the Pan Asia Pacific region also increased from 2016's 39% to 2017's 41%.
Acer's work in Pan Asia Pacific's enterprise procurement market also began to show results. Acer acquired procurement orders for around 60,000 desktops and notebooks from the Philippines in the first quarter and orders for over 80,000 all-in-one (AIO) PCs from Indonesia in the second quarter. Shipments fulfilling the orders have already begun.
As for gaming PCs, Acer's related sales in the first half of 2018 grew 250% from a year ago and the company is confident about achieving its 2018 target of doubling its sales.
Acer is currently the largest gaming notebook brand in Thailand, India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia and is pushing to become the number one in the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam in the next 2-3 quarters.
As for Weblink president Dave Lin's recent resignation as president of Acer Taiwan, Hou pointed out that the branch office's operation will be temporarily handled by him and there will not be any further change in personnel in the short term. Acer is currently the second largest PC brand in Taiwan, behind only Asustek Computer by around 10pp in market share.
Some market watchers pointed out that since Weblink is scheduled to be listed on Taiwan's Emerging Stock Market at the end of 2018, Lin is required to resign from his position in Acer Taiwan in order to concentrate fully in Weblink's operation, based on Taiwan government's policies.
Andrew Hou, president of Acer Pan Asia Pacific
Photo: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, July 2018
Article translated by Joseph Tsai