Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday said it is aiming to become a lifestyle brand following the launch of new energy drink in a livestream on Tuesday night.
The beverage, called Predator Shot, is perhaps one of the computer company’s most surprising attempts in expanding the Predator gaming line.
Seeking to repackage Acer as a lifestyle brand, the company has announced several accessories vaguely related to PCs, including a gaming inspired massage chair in collaboration with Singapore’s OSIM International Ltd (傲勝國際) and a sling bag sporting the green Acer logo.
Photo: CNA
“Our energy drink will help boost gamers’ energy and reduce fatigue resulting from too much screen time,” Acer chairman and CEO Jason Chen (陳俊聖) told a news conference at the company’s headquarters in New Taipei City, while also unveiling a collagen drink that targets female gamers.
Citing a saturated market, Chen said the company has to seek new growth beyond the PC industry.
“Forty years ago it [the PC industry] is considered a high-tech industry, but now it is no longer the case,” Chen said
“We cannot [afford to] stay in such a mature market and expect things to get better,” he added.
Still, Acer has witnessed a boom this quarter as sales over the past two months surged on the back of robust demand fostered by the growing trend for distance learning and work-from-home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With orders throughout the fall remaining high, the company is optimistic about its PC business in the second half of the year.
“[The increase] in demand from distance learning is phenomenal... We are having trouble satisfying up to one-third of our orders,” Acer cochief operating officer and president of corporate marketing, business planning and operations Tiffany Huang (黃資婷) said.
The imbalance between supply and demand is compounded by persistent supply chain disruptions across the PC industry, Huang said.
“As some countries remain under lockdown, some plants are unable to resume production... The delay of one component can lead to another,” she said, adding that the company is talking with suppliers to resolve shortages of components and raw materials.
China is set to become the largest growth driver for the company this year.
“Due to our relatively small presence on the Chinese market and the country’s early recovery [from the pandemic], we believe it holds great potential,” Huang said, adding that Acer is witnessing a growth rate higher than the PC industry’s average.
However, Acer’s performance in other countries across the Asia-Pacific region — including India and Indonesia — might be affected by continuous strict COVID-19 containment measures.
Last year, India and Indonesia accounted for about 25 percent of the company’s sales in the region.
Demand from the European and US markets is expected to continue on an upward trend due to their relatively rapid online migrations, the company said.
SPEED OF LIGHT: US lawmakers urged the commerce department to examine the national security threats from China’s development of silicon photonics technology US President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday said it is finalizing rules that would limit US investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology sectors in China that could threaten US national security. The rules, which were proposed in June by the US Department of the Treasury, were directed by an executive order signed by Biden in August last year covering three key sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain AI systems. The rules are to take effect on Jan. 2 next year and would be overseen by the Treasury’s newly created Office of Global Transactions. The Treasury said the “narrow
SPECULATION: The central bank cut the loan-to-value ratio for mortgages on second homes by 10 percent and denied grace periods to prevent a real-estate bubble The central bank’s board members in September agreed to tighten lending terms to induce a soft landing in the housing market, although some raised doubts that they would achieve the intended effect, the meeting’s minutes released yesterday showed. The central bank on Sept. 18 introduced harsher loan restrictions for mortgages across Taiwan in the hope of curbing housing speculation and hoarding that could create a bubble and threaten the financial system’s stability. Toward the aim, it cut the loan-to-value ratio by 10 percent for second and subsequent home mortgages and denied grace periods for first mortgages if applicants already owned other residential
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
TECHNOLOGY EXIT: The selling of Apple stock might be related to the death of Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger last year, an analyst said Billionaire Warren Buffett is now sitting on more than US$325 billion in cash after continuing to unload billions of US dollars worth of Apple Inc and Bank of America Corp shares this year and continuing to collect a steady stream of profits from all of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s assorted businesses without finding any major acquisitions. Berkshire on Saturday said it sold off about 100 million more Apple shares in the third quarter after halving its massive investment in the iPhone maker the previous quarter. The remaining stake of about 300 million shares was valued at US$69.9 billion at the end of