TAIPEI: Acer Inc is poised to overtake Dell Inc as the world's number two maker of personal computers. Numbers for the Taiwanese company surged forward after Acer beat its rivals to market with a new generation of portable PCs, according to Daiwa Securities Group Inc.

The CHART OF THE DAY tracks personal-computer market shares of the largest manufacturers. The tally is based on data compiled by Bloomberg from the research company IDC. Acer overtook Lenovo Group Inc in the third quarter of 2007 and may top Dell this year, the data shows.

"Acer should pick up market share because it was first to roll out the new generation of bigger-screen laptops with batteries that don't run out so quickly," said Calvin Huang, a Daiwa analyst in Taipei. The company gained "first-mover advantage" in the consumer-PC market with its Timeline range, a step up from netbooks, the fastest-growing consumer segment for computers, he said.

Dell's new consumer-portables with so-called ultra-low voltage processors will arrive "in the latter part of the summer and through the fall," Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell told an analysts' teleconference on July 14.

Computer shipments fell 3.1 percent to 66.3 million units in the second quarter, Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC said this month. Acer's shipments increased 24 percent, the most among major manufacturers, while Dell's dropped 17 percent, the only decline among the top five PC makers. Hewlett-Packard Co's shipments rose 3.6 percent, as it retained the largest market share.

"There is a lower-price, high-velocity small business movement going on and you see companies like Acer, for example, going after that," Stephen Felice, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell's president of small- and medium-sized business, told the teleconference. "Profit potential there is not as good," he said. "We don't need to necessarily win in the unit game, we need to hold our share and we need to make sure we're doing it profitably."

Bloomberg News

(HK Edition 07/31/2009 page2)