Acer To Enter Phone Market
N
N
0Overall Score

Acer are looking to enter the mobile phone market with a SmartPhone.

The move could come early in 2007, company chairman JT Wang said at an investors conference in Taiwan.  The smartphone, which is outsourced to Compal Communications, will be marketed as a BlackBerry handset for the SOHO and small- and medium-size enterprise (SME) sector, Wang said, without elaborating further.

Wang said that Acer posted a gross margin of 10.4% and an operating margin of 2.2% for the three quarters of this year, beating analysts’ forecast of an operating margin of below 2%.

For the US market, Acer’s revenues are expected to reached US$1.7-2.0 billion this year with an operating margin of 1.3-1.5%, Wang said, predicting that Acer’s US revenues are likely to top US$2.3-2.5 billion in 2007.

In response to market rumors saying that Acer is interested in acquiring US-based notebook vendor Gateway, Wang said that the deal could be too expensive for Acer because the value of Gateway’s intangible assets could top as much as NT$10-15 billion (US$300-450 million).