14 DAY TRIAL // Acer did say it was changing the way it approached the IT market, but its tactics vary more from country to country than some may have thought.
One of the most recent reports published by Digitimes deals with the tactics that Acer means to employ in Brazil.
As some may or may not know, the company does not exactly hold a large stake in the consumer PC market there.
Acer wants to change that situation this year, having set a shipment goal of about 1 million.
All things considered, the plans in South America seem to be going against the so-called “new tactic” that the company had supposedly chosen.
Just yesterday (January 31, 2011), it was said that Acer would stop focusing so much on prices and, instead, provide value and meet user experience expectations.
This doesn't appear to hold true for Brazil, though, and probably doesn't reflect Acer's plans for India, Indonesia and any other emerging markets either.
After all, at least according to the report, Acer is fully determined to compete in terms of affordability.
In other words, there is a full-blown price war going on in that country, as HP, Acer (which started it) and all their rivals try to exploit every single loophole they can.
Local vendor Positivo enjoys a strong position in Brazil, second only to HP as far as market share goes.
The reasons for this are the high customs duties on imported PCs, through which the government protects local PC makers.
As such, Acer is not shipping the PCs to Brazil, delivering the parts instead, after which the duty of assembling the products falls to local OEM partners.
Acer has transferred its focus away from Europe due to the debt problems in the area, so it makes sense that a large country like Brazil would strike its fancy. Time will have to tell if the strategy is successful or not.