Acer targets Rs 130 crore turnover in Eastern region in 2009-10

Acer India Limited, the third largest player in the personal computers market in the country, is aiming at a turnover of about Rs 130 crore in the eastern states in 2009-10, a 30 per cent growth over Rs 100 crore achieved by the company in this region in the previous fiscal.

On a pan-India basis, Acer India is eyeing a turnover of Rs 1,200 crore which would be a 20 per cent higher than Rs 1,000 crore achieved by the company in 2008-09.

Addressing media persons here, Gautam Basu, head (eastern regional office), Acer India said, “We are looking at a 30 per cent growth in our sales in the eastern region of the country in this fiscal. Acer has been posting a year-on-year growth of about 30 per cent in India and the eastern region contributes to around 13 per cent of the company’s total sales.” In the Orissa market, Acer India presently sells about 500 units of laptops and nearly 700 units of desktops every month and the company is expecting a 30 per cent growth in its sales in the state. Acer India expects its sales growth to come on the back of new product launches.

In the laptop segment, Acer India is the third biggest player after Hewlett-Packard and Dell with a market share of abut 14 per cent. In terms of desktop sales in the country, Acer is the fourth largest player after Hewlett-Packard, Dell and HCL.

Asked if the economic downturn has hit the sales of personal computers in the country, Basu said, The October-December quarter was tough for us as far as sales were concerned but our sales have picked up from January this year and March was the best month for the company in terms of sales during the period of recession.

Acer spends about two per cent of its annual sales on brand building and we have no plans to cut our brand spending even in this period of economic meltdown, he claimed. The company has 55 Acer malls across the country which showcase the company’s products-laptops and desktops. In the eastern region, Acer has three malls in West Bengal, one in Bhubaneswar, one in Ranchi and one in Assam. The company has 20 dealers in Orissa and three service centres in Bhubaneswar.

Acer today launched the Aspire EL 1600, a nettop mainly targeted at school and college students in the country.

A nettop is a type of mini desktop or small form factor computer designed for performing basic computation tasks like internet surfing, accessing web-based applications and document processing.

The Aspire EL 1600 is priced at Rs 11,999 which excludes the cost of the monitor. The price of the monitor ranges from about Rs 4,000-Rs 8,000.