• Covid-19 has given its PC business a boost but cautious on next year.
• Aims to shed its image as an entry-level PC manufacturer and transform into a lifestyle brand.
• For 2021, Acer expects a 6% growth in regional revenues.

Dubai: Acer is expecting revenue growth of between 24 per cent and 28 per cent for the year from the Middle East as Covid-19 gives a shot in the arm to its PC business.

“We have seen a strong growth in notebooks while retail has seen a strong growth in Chromebooks, gaming notebooks, gaming monitors and in the commercial sector,”  Paul Collins, General Manager for Middle East and Africa at Acer, told TechChannel News in an exclusive interview.

The Taiwanese firm and the fifth-largest PC manufacturer has primarily been a customer brand in the region but this year, the brand had launched its commercial division to target enterprises.

Collins said that the entire PC industry is struggling with a lot of demand and not with enough supply of chips and panels due to the lockdowns.

“We will not be able to catch up with the demand until the second quarter of next year. So, we will have a robust growth until the end of the second quarter. What happens after that, I am not entirely sure. There is still a place to grow, especially in the education sector across the region. It is difficult to predict the second half of next year,” he said.

Moreover, he said the biggest challenge for this year is meeting customer demand and for next year is to watch the market and manage the net reduction in customer demand as supply starts to improve.

A player to watch

Industry observers have warned that demand is expected to wane next year despite strong shipment gains in the second and third quarters of this year with the momentum remaining robust in the fourth quarter.

In the consumer space, Acer is expecting a 21 per cent growth this year and a 300 per cent growth in the commercial space, albeit from a small base.

“We have signed a new distributor for the commercial space and 14 new partners,” Collins said. 

In the gaming space, Acer is expecting a 40 per cent growth this year and hopes to repeat the same growth next year also.

“As we went into the Covid period, lot of people was forced to spend on entertainment and found that most of the machines were not up to it and there were also new gamers who entered the market as well, from mobile gaming to PCs or consoles as they spent most of their time at home,” he said.

For 2021, Acer is predicting a moderate growth of six per cent.

Sees great opportunities with ConceptD

“There are still some great opportunities we have in our company that will still allow us to grow such as ConceptD (desktops, laptops and monitors for creators) and Enduro (rugged tablets, detachables, and laptops) while the demand for gaming and monitors are still not finished,” Collins said.

“We entered the Egypt market about 18 months ago and we have a lot of space to grow there. In the next six to nine months, Acer sees growth opportunities in the consumer space in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and across the region in the commercial space. To start with, our focus will be on UAE and Saudi Arabia in the commercial space,” he said.

The ConceptD products are going to be available in the region soon and Collins said that they are getting a lot of enquiries from retailers as well as from the commercial sector.

Acer, last week, launched its premium Porsche Design Acer Book RS to challenge Apple’s MacBook Pro.

Dual transformation strategy

Collins said that Acer has a “dual transformation strategy” which means to focus on the classical PC business and bring other businesses to market.

“We changed our business model slightly; we aim to become a lifestyle brand. We will be bringing more products into the market as we will no more be known as an entry-level PC manufacturer. The idea behind the Porsche Design is part of the strategy. To be selected by Porsche Design, you certainly need to do some really good stuff,” he said.

The carbon fibre covered notebook is expected to be available in December in the region and is expected to be priced at AED9,999.

“Porsche Design notebooks will give us more margins but we don’t expect to sell hundreds of thousands of products,” he said.

However, he said that whenever they have launched big products in the region, it has done exceptionally well.

“Our Predator 21X gaming laptop ($9,000) was sold more than in any other region and the Predator Thronos, a multi-monitor gaming cockpit (AED130,000), we sold more than anywhere else in the world,” he said.

To become a lifestyle brand, he said that Acer will be launching more high-tech products into the market, including a smart scooter.

Acer had launched an energy drink for gamers, known as Predator Shot, in June this year.

“We are carrying on designing our cooling solutions for almost all of our products. We started with our gaming products and we have over 200 patents for cooling technologies and we came up with new cooling technology – the AeroBlade 3D Fan with the world’s thinnest metal fan blades at only 0.1mm – which reduces the sound by 26 per cent compared with normal generic plastic fans and offers better cooling.