Acer eyes bigger market share in Visayas

CEBU, Philippines – Acer Philippines Inc., aims to increase market penetration in the southern Philippines with Cebu as its gateway to bring in affordable personal computers and notebooks to Visayas consumers.

Acer Philippines Inc., general manager Manuel Wong said that current sales volume of the company is dominated by the Luzon market, while provincial areas in Visayas and Mindanao only accounts for 20 percent to 30 percent.

Wong said the company now aims to deploy 30 percent of its sales volume to markets outside of Luzon such as Cebu and other provinces in the southern part of the country.

Acer recently launched in Cebu its new Timeline series notebooks, the Acer 4810T and Acer Aspire Timeline 3810T, dubbed as “the world’s first ultra low voltage notebooks.”

Wong said Acer Philippines will strengthen its network of dealers in Cebu and Visayas and Mindanao as it has seen the huge potential of the provincial markets as its growth driver in its Philippine operations.

“In these times of crisis, people tend to spend wisely,” Wong said adding that technology products which offer the more efficient features are expected to hit the consumers’ interest.

He said Acer will make sure that the provincial markets will have ample supply of the latest products, unlike in the past wherein new entry desktop or netbooks are only made available in Metro Manila.

Because of the importance of the provincial markets, Wong said Acer is planning to open up its own service center in Cebu by next year.

Despite its popularity in the international market as a brand, Acer is now introducing affordable netbooks for as low as P25 thousand, competing with other rival brands which are also offering netbooks of this price level.

Likewise, in its bid to become environmentally pro-active, Acer introduced its latest series of notebooks that thrive on longer battery life, apart from having thin dimensions.

“The challenge for computer manufacturers is in meeting the high demand of consumers. Notebook buyers want a product that is light to carry around yet does not consume much power,” said Wong.

Both laptops are capable of extending its battery life for up to eight hours long, saving up to 66 percent more power when put into sleep mode, the company statement read.

In designing the Timeline series, he said, Acer “broke another barrier in creating the finest and lightest notebooks.” At its thinnest point, the Aspire Timeline is just 24 mm thick or less than one inch and weighs 1.6 kilograms for the 13-inch model, and 1.9-kilograms for the 14-inch unit.

“We opened up a new dimension for notebooks where lightness and more time meet giving the highly demanding market more freedom to use their laptops,” said Wong.

Both laptops run with the Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 processor and Mobile Intel GS45 express chipset to deliver faster computing functions. —Ehda M. Dagooc