“130,000 portable computers were sold in the last quarter of 2011, and full-year sales stood at approximately 450,000 units,” Bogdan Iftemie, sales manager of Acer Romania, told ZF.
Sales were particularly strong in December, as consumers were confident to spend, which is what they did.
“We ended the year with our stock sold out. The market no longer grew because of large contracts with the public or private sector, but because of new segments and retail. People were confident to spend money so that they spent it and bought things,” Iftemie said. He did specify, however, that Acer had two big contracts with Orange and Profi retail chain last year. “We worked very well with Orange,” he added.
“Acer ended the year on the top spot, with a double-digit growth in the number of units. The growth in value was much lower because of the price erosion, generated by both the natural decline in tariffs in the industry and the competition.”
Acer Romania’s executive says the latest type of portable computers, which Intel helped take off, the ultrabooks, sold very well, so that he is optimistic about their sales performance this year. “We’ll easily sell 10,000 ultrabooks in Romania this year. This is a strategic segment for us in 2012.”
The local arm of the Taiwanese PC maker expects 10% sales growth this year.
The top companies on the local PC market are Acer and HP.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)