Nikkei Electronics Asia -- February 2010
Analysis
Why is Acer So Strong?

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Feb 1, 2010 00:09 Tomohiro Otsuki

Taiwan's Acer Inc. is no longer a manufacturer. To win in the PC industry, where horizontal division of labor has become a way of life, Acer has transformed its business model into a full-fledged trading company. The firm's approach offers a glimpse of where consumer electronics manufacturers, already using horizontal division, may be heading tomorrow.

Acer: An eagle with sharp talons outstretched, when it comes to price competition. Their operations have been slimmed down far below competing firms, minimizing overhead. Illustration based on a suggestion by Chen Yi-Ru of Y's Research.
(Illustration: Nobuo Yahagi)

"They'll hold the top share in worldwide notebook PC shipments in 2010," says the industry rumor mill about Acer Inc., pointing to its phenomenal growth. The company was only 1.2% behind top-ranked Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) in the third quarter of 2009 (Fig. 1). In the same period Acer also advanced to second place for the first time in total PC sales, including desktops, notebooks, and servers, surging past Dell Inc.

Fig. 1 Attacking HP
Since 2000, Acer has been the only major firm continuously expanding its share of the notebook PC market. (a) The shares of the top three, and Acer, for each year, showing how Toshiba, for example, has vanished entirely. Acer enjoys overwhelming superiority in Europe, but has relatively small shares of the United States market, where HP and other rivals are headquartered, and China, where it faces a number of local competitors (b). Data courtesy of Gartner.