Ah, the
inexorable rise of a once-small Taiwanese company. Acer chairman JT Wang has told investors in a conference call this week that his company is on track to overtake HP in worldwide laptop shipments before the year is through. That assertion is backed up by Gartner's data, cited in the
Wall Street Journal,
which indicates that Acer shipped 9.49 million mobile computers in the first quarter of 2010, just ahead of HP's 9.47 million. Positive vibes are also being felt on the desktop front, where Acer aims to shift 10 million units this year, while a decent $15 million is being invested into "developing a smartphone platform based on Google Inc.'s
Android." We'll be curious to see whether this thrifty strategy pays off against HP's ebullient $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm, but one thing's for sure: PC vendors are
hungry for some of that sweet smartphone pie.
Update: Gartner has corrected Acer's worldwide shipments number down to 9.12 million, placing it a close second behind HP for Q1.
posted June 19th 2010 8:59AM
@deepen03 call me nuts but i have this crazy idea that investors do care a bit that the company they put their money in is number one... this announcement was made to INVESTORS
@deepen03 Want something reliable? Get yourself a ThinkPad T series. You can try luck with Dell Latitude or HP EliteBook series, they are pretty solid.
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Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES you should buy a consumer laptop. They are all crap, independently on vendor - Apple being a notable exception on the consumer market.
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Buy a business oriented machine. All vendors know, that it they screw their business customers, they will screw themselves, so business hardware tends to be better built and uses better components. Also the support is better.
I've been pretty happy with my Acer 1810TZ and my GF loves her Gateway NV series with the core i5 and bluray that she got for 500 bucks. Don't get the bottom end laptops and I think they're good to go. It's like judging all Chevys based on how well the Cavalier is put together.
@Min I don't understand all the hate on Acer. So far my 1410tz is proving to be a more solid lappy than the many HPaqs I've owned over the years. Sample size of one and all, but I doubt they only put quality control and good design into one model.
@dingus
Well you're one of the lucky one's. You got a high specced machine dirt cheap so good for you.
But, the fact remains acer make computers that have terrible reliability. Me and many others like me have had many problems and are justifiably angry about it.
I certainly won't be buying Acer again unless they sort it out.
@weeandystheman
Its called planned obsolescence. I read where an engineer said he could make a product break within three years no matter how well you took care of it. That is business. I even read Toyota had cars that were too good. Hey, when you need to sell sell sell you ain't going to make your stuff last that long. Same also was said about Apple. A tech columnist chirped that Apple may have made their stuff too good also. That was like ten years ago.
Whatever.
Today in the pc world those systems are so freaking cheap they are disposable.
If there's one company that makes shittier and lower quality laptops than HP, it's Acer.
Even if they do take over, they will still be known as the worst quality computer company.
Acer Aspire One website page has the cheeziest music ever! But gateway NV is probably the most "solid" lappy by acer right now
snipers.... just use tha attomic iApple Bom to blow those away
I have an Acer... 5932G.. 1gig GT130.. $750 ... works flawlessly and plays games with ease.. I'm not complaining
Acer are not great but at least they're not expensive. HP are the worst cause they also cost a lot!!!
I thought I was the only one thinking what most of you were thinking. I work for HP and I can see this happening. Acer is just flooding the market with an inferior product at a cheap price and as we all know.....about 70% of consumers have no clue what the hell they're buying and are just looking at the price. If you're just downloading music , surfing the net and watching youtube, well any computer can do that at a level where the normal user will be happy.
@Jokool7777
Oh please.
HP and every other computer maker has done it to themselves. For anything but the high-end, HP doesn't build jack anymore. It's all component X from some Taiwanese supplier mated to component Y from some Chinese supplier, dropping into a case make by a 3rd foreign supplier. They are all commodity parts and all HP does is tack on a mark-up and a fancy logo onto the box.
Acer is simply following the American business model of cutting out the middleman and keeping prices low. The only difference is that Acer is a Taiwanese company that is out-smarting the Americans at their own game.
The rise of Acer is the story of the fall of American prominence in the world stage.
If I am not mistaken, Acer started as a small-time supplier of components for huge American computer makers that loved to outsource everything and just rebadge them for sale in the US. Acer used that knowledge to grow both their expertise and business to the point where they decided they didn't need the fancy American logo on their products. Now Acer is positioning itself as a top-tier computer builder that dwarfs many of the old American companies it used to supply components to.
Until America wakes up and realizes that not everything should be outsourced, this story is going to repeat itself time and again.
I have an acer aspire desktop, works lovely, only cause I took out the shitty nvidia chipset mobo and dropped in a gigabyte g31 based board. Never looked back very stable unlike the board it came with...
I bought an Acer to replace my buggy MacBook. Got a great deal i5, 4 Gigs Ram and 500 GB HD for $599. Problem was it didn't handle video editing well at all - Premiere CS5 and Premiere Elements stuttered and the look of the computer was cheap.
But the build quality seemed good, it was the quietest computer I've ever had and it ran cool ALL day. My Macbook runs smoking hot after only a couple of hours. I would get another one if they could do something about the lousy video editing.
And at the end of the day I didn't find the i5 to be much of a leap in performance over the 2.4 Duo. Most tasks seem to take about the same amount of time.
I have a 15 inch acer anf it works awesome ! No problems here of course idont use it for heavy stuff but still I got it for 350 and I love it, my friend has an hp he bought it for 400 and he uses it for heavy stuff and he has no proble
s with it I guess is just luck or maybe people dont take care of their computers who knows! Hey also let me tell you I like my acer laptop more than my apple laptop lol , I have a mix of windows and mac and windows rules my world.
Of course Acer will overtake HP. HP is dedicated to making smartphones now! Right?
Right?
(re-reads article about dumbass HP CEO)
Oh . . . #$%@
Sent from my Palm Pre on AT&T
Acer is has the most problems out of any company. I would never buy a Acer computer. I would buy Toshiba, Sony, HP and Asus. In that order.
@Toshiba I say either buy an ASUS or Sony and you're good to go. I would never touch another company.
@Toshiba Is this from experience? I have an acer desktop and netbook and I've never had a problem with either. I also never had a problem with hp computers.
On a side note, i always wondered how apple users had so many problems with their computers? I've never had an issue with my computer that wasn't related to something I had done.
@Toshiba
Personally I hate Toshiba, my wife had one from work and it seemed like the designers had set out to make the buttons on the trackpad so uncomfortable they were basically unusable.
@Toshiba ThinkPads. Only. All other consumer crap is not worth it's money. Dell starts making decent machines in the business segment, so they are also a choice. I can't say the same about their consumer products - they are all crap.
Don't HP & Acer use the same oem Quanta or Clevo so really how is either better is not like there actually making them.
I have one Acer that is still running fine after 5 years and one HP that lasted a year and a half which was sent back so many times that gave me a new one.
@Xoy well it always depends on what motherboard your laptop has, what quality HDD you have.. It all factors in.. You can't just look at a brand as a whole when they make 100s of different models. It is possible to get a really good Acer, but with other brands like Sony and ASUS, you are guaranteed a quality product. So you probably got lucky with your Acer.
here is the Laptop Reliability Chart:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10400447-1.html
Reading comments here, makes be wonder. I have both Acer and HP laptops and both HPs broke down (not to mention HPs of people who work in our office). I mean those HPs were top of the line Pavillions, that all had serious quality issues.
Acers however proven to be pretty reliable, even though they feel cheap (build quality), but that's because they were cheap. Surprisingly Acer's netbook (Aspire One) felt very solid, and the SSD version proven to be a pretty capable computer (for what it is ofcourse).
@bathellfire
+1
Plus, Acer cover a broad range of notebook, from a cheap netbook to a i7+dedicated 3d+bluray laptop.
@magallanes HP has a netbook too. I think it's called Mini or something, but HP decided to put Win7 on it and bumped the price to around $500, which is 200 dollars more than Acer's netbook.
After Apple, HP probably make the best laptops. I was really impressed with a cheap HP 17" we just got for someone at my work. It looked like it should be a lot more expensive.
...Acer stuff is way down the list in terms of quality and reliability.
We've had major problems with every single piece of Acer rubbish we have had in our company.
@Downpour HP makes decent stuff in business segment, the ElliteBooks are quite tough, but their consumer product line is not better than Acer. They should change the series name "Pavillion" to "Pavulon".
I bought an Acer netbook not long ago and right out of the box, the USB ports didn't work. After trying some stuff on my own, and chatting with Acer support, it became clear I'd just need a new motherboard.
Luckily, because it was new, I could return it to Amazon, and I bought an Asus instead. I'm much happier now; this has been a great little machine, and I think I probably rid myself of a lemon.
Acer has the worst customer service, their warranty isnt good the customer is responsibile for paying one way shipping to get a manufacturers defect fixed and the shells of the computers are poor overall go HP HP's computers are much more reliable and they stand behind their product
Acer will be on The first rate soon ...
Those new Laptops Ethos oooh . Best very nice !! quality too
sony is not good this year ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdwojMM3Xls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW3zv9qEiP8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ci4QwDjQ38
Core i7 and up to 16 gb ram
Not so sure they will overtake HP this year, part of the reason for lower shipments is an aging design of the current generation, I think with the new redesign they may pull ahead.
But even if Acer does overtake them with their strategy of selling machines with NO margin, they will still not make as much net profit as HP.
Acer and Apple are like two extremes on the margin scale. Apple is all about margin, Acer just wants to sell as many units as possible, margin be damned, they are like the computer equivalent of zerglings in their style, and HP is somewhere in between.
@tybert7
Bear in mind Acer made $10 Billion in profit last year Apple didn't make much more.
@fourthletter If they are making that much money off brands of the likes of gateway and emachines... along with the aggressively prices acer models... that margin must be coming from somewhere. Lower end components? Are is their manufacturing cost simply lower than the competition?
Anything BUT Acer!
I know for one my money will never go in Acer's pocket.
Acer already spent £145 million on buying ETEN to start their mobile division, did you forget that ?>
being #1 in units shipped simply means you're selling more low end products and willing to lose money doing it. Acers financials, like Lenovo's aren't great..so it's just a hallow bragging point.
"Acer shipped 9.49 million mobile computers in the first quarter of 2010, just ahead of HP's 9.47 million"
No one cares about units shipped, they could be all netbooks. The point is to actually be bigger than HP, which would mean either having a bigger market cap, or having a bigger business than HP in dollars per quarter (or year)...
Units shipped is meaningless