Acer has been aggressively pushing its revenue contribution from the enterprise product business and is planning to increase the percentage from 35% in 2016 to 40% in 2017 for the Asia Pacific market, according to Andrew Hou, Acer Pan Asia president.
The company's goal is to increase the percentage to 50%. Meanwhile, procurement orders for high-performance computing (HPC) products for artificial intelligence (AI) applications are also expected to more than double from 2016.
Currently, Acer has major strategies to raise its enterprise product sales are first is to reorganize its operating team to include a group specifically to handle the enterprise business. Second is to find a direction; Acer is planning to focus on government and education procurement projects and will then implement the successful business model in other markets.
The company's Acer Academy platform established in the Philippines for the education sector has successfully expanded Acer's brand recognition in the country, and should benefit the company in expanding to other countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Vietnam.
The third is to push the HPC market. Acer landed eight HPC procurement projects in 2016 and has so far acquired nine in 2017 and is hoping to double the 2016 number. In addition to India and Australia, Acer also acquired procurement orders from Thailand and Taiwan in 2017 and is currently in talks about orders in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, Hou noted.
As for the consumer PC business, Acer is focusing mainly on gaming and ultra-thin models. Acer was the largest gaming desktop vendor in the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia in the second quarter and second-largest in Taiwan, Australia and Singapore.
Acer was the largest gaming notebook vendor in the second quarter in Thailand and Hong Kong and the second largest in Singapore and New Zealand, Hou said.
To expand Acer's Predator gaming brand's recognition, Acer has also been sponsoring e-sports events and teams as well as cooperating with education units and schools to nurture e-sports talent.
For the Asia Pacific market, overall sales in the first half were weak because of component shortages and issues such as India's tax reform, but Acer performed rather stably. Since the second half is the traditional peak season and the component shortages will start easing, PC sales ratio for the first and second halves of 2017 is expected to reach 45:55
As for China, which contributes 20% of Acer's revenues from the Asia Pacific region, Hou expects sales to not be good due to weakening demand for products and strong competition. |