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Acer chief exec Stan Shih: Exiting the PC market? Not us!

IDC bloke grabs vendors, plants kiss of death on half a dozen of them

IDC analyst Tom Mainelli put the cat among the pigeons with his prediction last week that two of the top 10 PC vendors – but not the top four – will shutter their operations within the next two years.

His prognosis stung Asustek CEO Jerry Shen yesterday to proclaim his company’s allegiance to the PC market.

Today, Acer founder Stan Shih told reporters in Taiwan that the loss-making company remains committed to the global PC market and will redouble efforts to cut costs.

Then again, in August 2015 Shih, who holds the title “honorary chairman” at Acer, said would welcome a takeover of the company.

The world’s big four PC vendors are Lenovo, HP, Dell and Apple. So by inference Mainelli’s candidates for shuffling off this PC mortal coil are:

  • Acer
  • Asustek
  • Toshiba
  • Samsung
  • Tongfang
  • Fujitsu

It is unclear if Mainelli has inside knowledge or has amazing powers of deduction – perhaps he was basing his predictions partly on Michael Dell's claim that Dell, HP and Lenovo will account for 80 per cent of global PC sales within five to seven years.

Samsung and Sony have already withdrawn from the PC arena in Europe, having exited last year. It is clear that the PC market is in secular decline, competition is cut-throat and margins are down the toilet. But what would Acer do if it was not selling PCs – aside from filing for bankruptcy?

On the other hand, Toshiba and Fujitsu have many more strings to their bows. ®

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