Acer banks on new products, commart

The company hopes these moves will enable it to achieve overall sales of 516,000 units this year and maintain its growth at 15 per cent.

Boonchai Ngouvisitkul, associate director of Acer Computer's Consumer Product Manage-ment Division, said about 15,000 units are expected to be sold at Commart: 10,000 to 12,000 notebooks, 2,000 to 3,000 desktops, 1,000 to 2,000 netbooks - the small and affordable laptop products - and about 1,000 nettops, which are affordable desktop computers.

Acer is offering plenty of promotions at the fair, including the launch of the eMachine Nettop EL1600 for Bt5,990, against the normal Bt6,990.

Boonchai said the eMachine Nettop represented the new product line of Acer's eMachine brand, which focuses on first-time users who require computers for general use.

"The difference between the Acer and eMachine brands is the price and product specification. Since 'e' is short for economy, the eMachine focuses on the lower end of the market with its lower price and specifications designed to serve first-time users who use computers for general applications rather than playing games or watching high-definition movies," he said.

The move is part of the company's multiple-brand strategy, under which it will have three brands: Acer, eMachine and Gateway, the last of which will kick off in Thailand in the second half of the year.

Boonchai described Acer as the brand for the tech savvy, while eMachine is its fighting brand and Gateway's brand image will be for stylists and designers.