14 DAY TRIAL // Gianfranco Lanci, Acer's president and chief executive officer, outlined his company's global strategy for the near future at a global press conference that took place in Madrid. This conference was aimed at shedding some light on Acer's global business strategy for the upcoming year and at the same time to offer a number of details about the recent acquisition.
Recently Acer announced two bold acquisition plans as the company is preparing to expand both in United States and in Europe. The United States expansion is very closely linked to the merging with the American computer hardware manufacturer Gateway, while the European move is related to the acquisition of the Packard Bell company.
Acer's president also said that the next moves are aimed at integrating all three brands and that his company will position each one on a different market segment, but declined to give further details. "Our channel strategy will be very different from our competitors. The market is changing where users have different needs for our products," he said in a statement and he was cited by the news site pcretailmag. "We do not want to confuse our customers and think that multiple branding is the future.''
On the other side it is rumored that Acer will be a brand more widely used for the business and server market segments, while the other two divisions will be aimed at other markets, depending on their respective region. For example, in the United Kingdom, Packard Bell will handle all Acer entry level products for the entry level market while a completely different brand will be used for the high end and gaming intended computer systems.
While Acer is going to gain a pretty strong foothold on the computer market in the United States thanks to its merging with Gateway, the most important revenues are still going to come from Europe, Africa and Asia. As Acer's market position in the U.K. is not among the top computer vendors, we may soon find that the company starts promoting the Packard Bel more aggressively while at the same time make more deals with retail stores and dealers as Acer is not known for a direct sales approach to the computer market.