14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that long-time supporter of netbooks Acer is actually reducing the amount of low-end laptop orders and aiming to fill the gap with tablets, if a certain report is to be believed at least.
Until early last year, Acer was one of, if not the staunchest of netbook promoters, understandable considering that this sort of laptop was more or less responsible for getting the company safely through the recession, at least to some extent.
Then, tablets came out and pretty much caused the whole layout of the IT market to crumble, slowly at first, but more and more thoroughly as time went by.
Acer, like pretty much every other notebook and smartphone maker out there, had to revise its business practices.
It started developing tablets last year and has been selling some of them for quite a few months already.
Granted, this was not without hurdles, a fairly serious one having hit it just recently, when it ended up without a CEO (Chief Executive Officer).
Still, even led by an Interim, the company is not dawdling, apparently having resolved to get more avid in its slate promotion.
As reported by Digitimes, the company has increased the number of tablet orders for the month of March, meaning that those responsible with assembling them will have extra work this month and, possibly, the whole quarter.
10-inch models are reaching order volumes of 400,000-600,000 and will be put together by Compal Electronics.
Meanwhile, about 100,000-200,000 7-inch models were also ordered, which means that Quanta Computer will not have to sit on its hands either.
All in all, the outfit is intent on selling more and more of these devices, to the point where its internal forecasts place expected yearly shipments, for 2011, at 5-7 million. Time will tell whether this goal is actually reached or not.