Acer aims at 50% growth

Acer India is targetting to grow 50 per cent in 2008 to touch revenues of Rs 1,800 crore. The company plans to sell 800,000 desktops and laptops during the year, a growth of 35 per cent over last year.

Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, Acer India's managing director W S Mukund said the company had earned a revenue of Rs 1,200 crore in 2007.

"We are in the fourth position in terms of the total PC shipments in India. With regard to notebooks, we are in the third position in the list of top 10 companies. In fact, our notebook segment witnessed a 360 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2007 as against the overall industry growth of 90 per cent."

The company expects its market share to touch 10 per cent by the end of 2008, a marginal increase from 2007 levels of 9.5 per cent.

On whether the global credit crunch would affect the company's sales, Mukund said: "There is unlikely to be a huge impact on the growth of desktop and notebook segments in the country. While the desktop segment is expected to be more or less flat with the growth rate of 3 - 4 per cent, the notebook segment presents a healthy picture with growth expected to be around 62 per cent."

To increase its sales, the company is looking at tapping the government's e-governance initiatives including the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in the education sector.

On the company's expansion plans, Mukund said: "We have invested a little over Rs 25 crore in our desktops manufacturing unit at Puducherry and its production capacity is 30,000 units per month. We are thinking of increasing volumes if the demand increases."

This apart, Acer plans to invest Rs 75 crore on its brand shops this year. "We want to increase the brand shops from 250 to 350 across the country," he added.

On Thursday, Acer launched two notebooks "" Aspire 6920 and Aspire 8920 "" under its new series titled 'Aspire Gemstone Blue'. Explaining the features of the notebooks, Acer India's chief marketing officer S Rajendran said while Acer 6920 is built on a 16" footprint and weighs 3.3 kg, that of Acer 8920 is 18" and weighs 4.1 kg. These notebooks come with a high definition cine cyrstal LCD screens and a native 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. The notebooks are equipped with wide colour gamut and deliver 33 per cent more colour range than the typical notebook panels, Rajendran said.

Both the notebooks come with the latest CineDash media console, a touch-sensitive interface that allows users to manage entertainment, navigate meuns, aadjust volume and control other media functions on the fly.

This apart, the tube-style Acer Tuba CineBass sub-woofer has an output of 10 Watt delivered using Dolby natural bass technology, Rajendran added.

While the Aspire 6920 is priced at Rs 49,999, Aspire 8920 is priced at Rs 79,999.