14 DAY TRIAL // Acer, one of ASUSTek's main competitors in the dynamic market of netbooks, is expected to sell in September over 1 million units worldwide of its only netbook product so far, the Aspire One. The company, which holds a strong position in major markets such as the US and Europe, has also set up channels in emerging markets such as India, which is why market watchers believe that it could easily reach the 2 million worldwide shipments threshold in the third quarter of 2008.
Since its release earlier this year, the Aspire One has had to compete with ASUS' vast 9-inch Eee PC lineup, and with all the other netbooks released in the meantime. Naturally, because of this, the company had to resort to different marketing strategies to keep the customers interested. One of them was to operate consecutive price cuts for the new sub-notebook, a solution that ultimately enabled Acer to achieve a strong market position. This has also helped the Aspire One become the best selling product after ASUS' Eee PC in certain segments.
In addition, the company is now planning to offer a built-in 3G module for its netbook, which will hit the Taiwanese market in November this year. According to Digitimes and several trustworthy industry sources, the company is expected to initially sell the product in cooperation with Taiwan Mobile (TWM).
Unfortunately, at this point in time, there is no word yet on whether a 3G-enabled Aspire One will also be coming to Europe or the US. Acer adopted Qualcomm's 3G chip, which will raise the netbook's price tag by as much as US$94.33, but there's a possibility for a price drop of approximately $156, as part of a bundle deal with 3G service carriers.
As mentioned in several of our previous articles, the netbook market is expanding at a very fast pace and, even if several manufacturers have already announced their products, more are expected to do so in the near future. Stay tuned here for more.