Acer shifts focus to commercial market in new plan

Dubai: Acer has flushed away its previous channel programme after polishing off a shiny new scheme to underpin its pursuit of corporate, small- and medium-sized business and professional customers.

The once high-flying consumer brand is trying to spread its reach in the commercial markets and has clearly defined the channel partners in the Middle East.

Grigory Nizovsky, Acer's country manager for Middle East, told Gulf News: "We didn't have a functioning programme in the past so it was difficult for channels to get information or product feeds and speeds, they needed to go to distribution."

"From a commercial perspective, we were very consumer focused but we have gone through a significant transformation in terms of leadership," said Nizovsky.

Acer returned to profit in the fourth quarter of last year, albeit marginally, but the recovery came too late in the year to prevent it from posting very significant losses for the whole of 2011.

"Acer is back and the fourth quarter was a turnaround quarter. We have identified key areas for profitable growth this year and we are also going to limit the company's presence in the areas that do not meet the profitability requirements," he said.

The second largest PC vendor in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is expecting 15 per cent growth in corporate business this year.

After parting with several members of the senior executive team, including its CEO Gianfranco Lanci, the firm began a turnaround plan.

The firm predicts a doubling of its ultrabook and tablet shipments and said the tablet operation will break even or make a small profit this year.

Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, said the reason the vendor grew in the fourth quarter of 2011 was because it "performed so badly in the fourth quarter of 2010".

"The bottom line is that there are too many PC vendors around for Acer to get [business] quickly back on line," he said.

Meanwhile, Acer is investing $1.5 million (Dh5.5 million) per quarter in channel marketing and joint marketing programmes in the Middle East to help increase its brand recognition.

"We are expecting 28 per cent year-on-year growth in mobile units in the first half of this year and have identified Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and the Gulf as the key captive markets," Nizovsky said.