Acer Suffers Abysmal Second Quarter, Loses $234 Million

HP's decision to completely let go of its PC business might not be the only thing that will shock the consumer base once they learn of just what kind of turn Acer's finances took during the second quarter.

Consumers' minds might still be reeling after hearing that HP has not only abandoned its webOS projects, but it also wants to spin off its PC unit, one that Samsung might end up buying.

Apparently, Acer's own decision to change its policy, the one taken back in April, has either failed to yield positive results or hasn't had time to do so.

The reason for this speculation is the most recent financially-focused press release on its part, the one dealing with the second quarter of 2011.

What happened was that Acer lost 6.79 billion New Taiwan Dollars (TWD), a sum that is roughly equivalent with $234.1 million.

To make things worse, the company expects losses to keep piling up, even if the ones in the upcoming third and fourth quarter won't be quite this bad.

The biggest contrast noticeable here is the one between this loss and the profit of 1.19 billion TWD posted during the first quarter.

For those that want more numbers, Acer basically fell 32% on-year during Q2, to NT$102.1B (or US$3.5B), while the entire first half of 2011 saw a 26% drop, from 2010 NT$229.9B (US$8.0B).

US$150 million were spent on sales allowance (to clear inventories in the EMEA markets) while reorganization in that same region drained Acer of an extra US$30 million.

The press release was fairly succinct and did not go into any detail as to just what outlets Acer will focus on in the future, not that it wasn't already clear the mobile has become important.

All in all, the company intends to continue with its restructuring plans until the full outlook has transformed as was previously decided. Whether things change for the better, money-wise, once that is done will probably be made clear in 2012.