Taiwan's Acer Looks to Attaining Sales Goal of 10 M. Smartphones in 2015

Seeing gradual growth in its smartphone sales in Thailand, Malaysia and other emerging countries, Acer Inc., a Taiwan-based supplier of branded PCs and consumer electronics, looks to attaining annual sales of 5 million smartphones this year and 10 million units next year, according to S.T. Liu, head of its  smartphone business department.

Such optimism is based mainly on Acer's extensive global distribution network. Following years of efforts to explore emerging markets, Liu said that the company has distributed smartphones to 31 countries and plans to take advantage of its current partnerships with telecoms in Thailand, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian nations to penetrate the Burmese market in the short term.

Acer sells smartphones mostly through contracts with larger telecoms such as T-Mobile, worldwide, including Mexico, the U.K., Puerto Rico and Jamaica,  to evade fierce underselling in  retail sector and carve out niche.

To fuel shipment growth, Liu indicated that Acer will increasingly focus on promoting sub-US$49.99 smartphones as part of its strategy to expand the low-to-mid range lineup with unit prices below US$149, to try to boost global market share more rapidly.

For instance, Liu revealed, Acer will launch a 3.5-inch smartphone model unit priced at only US$49 in Q1, 2015 to drive overall shipment growth, also display its new low-cost models as Liquid Z500 at the IFA in Berlin 2014, held September 5-10 in Germany.

On when Acer's smartphones business will turn profitable, Liu commented that increasingly  popular 4G and LTE communications globally will present ever more challenges and opportunities to players in the competitive landscape in the near future, hence making steady  investment higher priority over profitability.

On another front, Liu mentioned that Acer will launch new wearable devices with more customized designs to meet consumers' demand for fashion, sports,  leisure and lifestyle next year as  additional accessories to its Liquid Leap, a wristband priced at euro 99 per unit. Acer's newly inaugurated CEO, Jason Chen, said earlier that promotion of wearable devices for BYOC (Build Your Own Cloud) application can be seen a vital step Acer has taken towards transformation from hardware businesses into services of hardware-software integration. (SC)