ACER VS DELL

Acer overtakes Dell as world’s second largest computer maker

Despite the recession, Taiwan based Acer have been enjoying steady growth and in the third quarter have managed to jump ahead of Dell to take up second place behind computer giant Hewlett Packard who quite comfortably retained their position as the world’s leading computer maker.

The information comes from research firm iSuppli who said that this was the first time an Asian original equipment manufacturer (OEM) has taken up second position in world PC shipments on a quarterly basis.

According to iSuppli analyst Matthew Wilkins, the company’s market share of shipments was 11.6 percent last year and 13.4 percent in the third quarter this year.

“Acer’s rise to the number-two rank in the global PC business reflects not only its strong performance in the notebook segment, but also the historic rise of Asia as a primary force in the computer industry,” Wilkins said.

Apparently Acer’s growth has got something to do, at least in part, with those relative newcomers to the industry, the cheap and cheerful netbooks.

“The Asian manufacturers are a growing force in the global PC business due to their aggressive pricing, along with their ability to quickly react and embrace new developments, such as the netbook PC,” Wilkins said.

China based Lenovo are also doing well and actually had the highest growth (36 percent) out of the top ten OEMs in the third quarter says Wilkins. Lenovo have taken up position number four followed by Toshiba in fifth place.

“They were second only to Samsung in terms of year-over-year growth, but we have to be careful here because Samsung’s absolute number was far smaller,” Wilkins said.

“Acer is also doing very well in netbooks, which are contributing to the increase in shipments,” Wilkins added.

Back in 1990 at a Computex, Acer’s founder Stan Shih said that Acer would rise to take up one of the top three positions by the year 2000. Ok so it’s a little late but they got there, and in a fragile economy too.

If we look at market share then HP holds just under 20 percent, Acer has nabbed 13.4 percent followed by Dell at 12.9 percent so there’s not a lot in it but that’s not the point.
Lenovo are next in line with 8.7 percent followed by Japanese Toshiba with 5 percent.

“The third-quarter performances of Acer and Lenovo are just the latest development in the long-term rise of Asian manufacturers in the global PC market” said Wilkins.

Let’s see what the fourth quarter brings.