AFP reports Acer has launched their first smat phones into the Asian market. AFP writes:
Taiwan-based computer giant Acer on Wednesday launched a series of advanced mobile phones for the Asia-Pacific region, ramping up its expansion into the wireless communication market.
Company executives said Acer was banking on its experience as a leading computer brand to gain a share of the lucrative market for "smartphones" -- feature-packed devices with multi-media functions including web surfing.
The unveiling of the products here will be followed by similar launches in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Australia and China, they said.
It came two months after the company announced a move into the mobile phone market in February at an industry event in Barcelona.
Best known for its laptops, Acer said its smartphones come equipped with powerful processing and memory capabilities.
"We are facing a very large opportunity here," said Roger Yuen, Asia Pacific vice president for Acer's smart hand-held device business group.
About 200 million smartphones are sold each year and Acer believes the market should grow at 15 percent annually in the next five years.
"Our ambition is to be among the top five smartphone vendors in the world in the next three years," Yuen said.
Applying the brand to Smart Phones is not such a bad idea but I am not sure if their "experience as a leading computer brand" is applicable to the Smart Phone industry. No doubt Acer have cooked up unique smart phone penetration strategies and maybe they are banking on the brand name to provide them with a good image but overall one would imagine the computer-experience and the smart phone-experience maybe a little different and require different strategies. Anyway, technologies are converging and Acer did need to make this move (it was the next logical step after netbooks).
4 comments:
"Applying the brand to Smart Phones is not such a bad idea but I am not sure if their "experience as a leading computer brand" is applicable to the Smart Phone industry."I'm not sure either, but there is a company that did it with great success--Apple. In fact, Apple just reported near record earnings on booming sales of the iPhone and associated revenue streams.
It's a tough act to follow for sure, and Acer hasn't made any noises about doing it in the same way that Apple did. The iTunes music and application store in my mind is the most difficult advantage to emulate. But I always thought netbooks, given enough standardization and consistency across lines, could probably support an App Store.
Using a different comparison, I have heard an economist say that Samsung's brand is so much more valuable compared to Acer/Asus because they sell so much high volume stuff. Every time they advertise for their quality flat panels, for their phones, they are accumulating brand-equity also for their other various product lines (cameras, computers, etc).
Well, I wish them luck, and hopefully they can come up with something more innovative.
yeah you make a great point but Acer is not Apple and does not have the same cult-cult like following. Apple phones are probably least compliant with operator networks (e.g. verizon) but the networks still carry them. no other brand carries that much weight. every other phone maker has to hit a certain compliance metric. Apple, they don't so I think Apple did do it well but they had the brand recognition. I doubt Acer has that and if they try to sell phones like computers (Apple didn't do that) they might have a problem.
I haven't heard that about Samsung. Certainly an interesting view. I think the netbook ap store is not too far away. I have seen Apple are jumping into Netbooks. You probably saw the rumours that Foxconn will be the manufacturer. I am sure Steve Jobs is in his sick bed designing the store. Thats where the real money is after all.
Thanks for your insightful comments as always. I appreciate the interaction and learn much from them.
The one thing that comes to mind here when comparing Apple to Acer is what they focus on.
"feature-packed devices with multi-media functions including web surfing"
and
"its smartphones come equipped with powerful processing and memory capabilities"
I have never heard what kind of processor an iPhone uses or any of those other specs. The Acer is probably more powerful, but that doesn't really matter that much to most users. Everyone wants an iPhone, at least a lot of people anyway. And the iPhone does some very basic things that people want and does them excellently.
Talking of Taiwan made stuff. HTC was supposed to be such a cool thing, their phones probably have faster processors and higher resolution screens, and cost less, but they have not made a big dent in the market. But their aim is still to just make it faster and add more features.
That's probably why netbooks did so well, because they met a need, and were not just bigger, stronger, faster.
at a guess I would say the iPhone uses and ARM processor. Most smart phones do (a new war with Intel is brewing). Yeah, HTC is making a small dent. They were smart to hookup with google but where they go from there, I don't know. Haven't followed them too much.
Thanks for the comment Peter. Have a great day
Paul
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