Acer Predator series launched in UAE: Humble PC fights back

Taiwanese hardware and electronics firm Acer is happy to be a big fish in a shrinking sea, but is hedging its growth strategy by maintaining a presence in the hottest growth segments.

The Xizhi (Taipei)-based firm is a major player in the fragmented desktop and laptop PC market, with an 8 per cent market share in 2014 (as per Gartner) landing it at the No. 4 slot globally, after Lenovo (18.8 per cent), HP (17.5 per cent) and Dell (12.8 per cent).

“The PC is truly the core of the company, accounting for 80 per cent of the revenue” Emmanuel Fromont, Corporate Vice President, Acer Inc. and President of Acer EMEA, told Emirates 24|7.

It’s no secret, however, that the desktop PC market is shrinking, pummelled as it is by the troika of smartphones, notebooks and gaming consoles.

According to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc., worldwide PC shipments totalled 68.4 million units in the second quarter of 2015, a 9.5 per cent decline from the second quarter of 2014.

This, says Gartner, was the steepest PC shipment decline since the third quarter of 2013. PC shipments are projected to decline 4.4 per cent in 2015, it said.

While some of the factors for this decline are reversible (the sharp appreciation in US dollar and a sales slowdown in anticipation of Windows 10 impacted shipments negatively), the segment will recover only modestly – if it does.

Acer devices operate predominantly on the Windows 10 platform byt the firm also has several mobile devices (smartpohones and Chromebooks) that operate on Google's Android OS. 

“We see flat to slight growth in the future. Some players left the market last year, so we see a lot of opportunity over there,” says Fromont.

He may be referring to Samsung and Sony, which exited the fiercely competitive laptop business, but the fact remains that these were smaller players in the market, and may lead to only incremental gains for the Top 5.

More critically, however, Acer has lost market share since 2010, when it was a global #2 player and held a 13.9 per cent share of the overall PC segment.

According to Gartner, Acer’s marketshare in the most recent quarter fell to 6.7 per cent, and it is now #5 worldwide, with Asus (6.8 per cent) overtaking it recently.

The firm maintains that it is revamping its product line-up for this year and next, and that is also making inroads into the other high-growth segments.

“We’re also in smartphones and wearables, so it isn’t as if we’re just banking on PC,” says Fromont. “PC is a commodity market, yes, but it is still a huge market,” he says. 

“It is a 300m units per year market – not a growing market, but still very attractive,” he says.

“Being in the Top 3 players will keep the company growing,” he notes.

“Also remember that the market is not static – it was growing until 2012, then declined and is fluctuating now,” adds Daniel Trachino, General Manager of Acer Mena.

“I believe in the IDC prediction – no super growth, but some growth,” says Fromont.

The Acer official says he sees the hybrids (the 2-in-one tablet-cum-notebooks) as PCs, and these, he says, are set to cannibalise the tablet segment.

“The smartphone will stay,” he says when requested to gaze into his crystal ball, “but beyond phone, and some sort of PC or detachable 2-in-1 will probably be the future instead of the tablet.”

Trachino adds that, “in mature markets, the smartphones are becoming bigger, and the laptops are becoming hybrids, and both these categories are infringing on the traditional tablet segment.”

Fromont adds that the PC market needs to take a leaf out of the smartphone market and refresh the line-up to keep the excitement going.

“There’s no need for the PC market to be in a decline,” he says. “We need to keep the excitement alive.”

Acer is looking at gaming, a proven niche in the segment, to keep that excitement going, introducing its anticipated gaming product line – the Predator Series – of gaming products in the UAE yesterday.

The Predator 17 and Predator 15 notebooks target on-the-go gamers, and are supported by the Predator FrostCore, a third fan module that may be swapped in with the optical drive to lower the CPU and GPU temperature further by up to 5 per cent, providing a smoother gaming experience.

The Predator 8 tablet, on the other hand, supports Predator Quadio, an array of four speakers with a special DSP algorithm to enhance sound quality with virtual surround, in addition to Predator TacSense, which provides haptic feedback for games and videos.

“Today, we are thrilled to unveil our new Predator gaming machine to hard-core gamers in the Middle East. Gaming is fast becoming a part of Middle Eastern popular culture and we have worked tirelessly to bring this new line of products to our regional consumers,” said Celeste Gibbens, Marketing Manager Middle East & Africa, Acer.

“Our relentless research and passion about our end users ensures that we continue to surprise them by delivering best-in-class experiences with every product. The Acer range today features a product that suits every aspect of our consumers’ lives.”

In addition, Acer showcased its leading devices including the versatile two-in-one Aspire Switch series laptops, notebooks, convertibles, and the ‘build you own computer’ Revo Build desktop.

The firm is also hoping to piggyback the new Windows 10 ecosystem that it maintains will allow a seamless consumer experience in terms of connected devices – smartphones, convertibles and PC – both on the move as well as in the home, office and/or car.