Will Acer Continue Taiwanese Laptop Invasion?
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
After being snubbed for years, Taiwanese laptop computers seem to be all the rage in South Korea, where their small, low-priced models, dubbed as ``netbooks,'' are proving to be a disruptive force in the market. This has encouraged Acer, the world's third-largest laptop maker and undisputed kingpin of the Taiwanese computer industry, to re-enter the Korean market from which it bowed out with a whimper eight years ago.
In a lavish news conference in Seoul on Thursday, Acer declared its comeback on the domestic market, announcing plans to launch a bunch of its most coveted products, including ``ultra-thin'' laptops, computers tailored for video games and also monitors and projectors.
It remains to be seen whether Acer can send a shiver up the spines of Korean heavyweights such as Samsung, LG and Trigem on their own turf this time around. However, the bright performance of the company's smaller Taiwanese rivals like Asus and MSI, perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the netbook era, inspires confidence.
Asus and MSI were considered nobodies here just two years ago, when Asus launched its first line of netbooks, but they now stand as two of the top laptop sellers in Korea after shaking the hierarchy of the personal computer market with their book-sized laptops.
For credit-crunched consumers laboring under the economic turmoil, those ultra-cheap, watered-down versions of laptops suddenly looked a lot better in terms of delivering a bang for the buck.
And the advancement in wireless environments, which also has telecommunications companies like KT and SK Telecom subsidizing some of the netbooks to sell their wireless services, is also making netbooks more attractive.
Acer is now looking to bring brand power to the no-frills laptop game. The company is betting on three netbook models ― Aspire One 751h, D250 and Revo R3610 ― and full scale laptops like Aspire Timeline 3810T and 1810T to generate a significant buzz.
Acer is counting on Dugo Tech, a local retailer which had been Apple's license seller here and made more than 75.5 billion won from selling the U.S. company's portable media player, iPod Touch, to provide an effective retail network for its products.
Hewlett-Packard is the currently Korea's favorite foreign laptop maker, as well as the world's No. 1 in that category. Acer says it will take HP's place here within three years, as it recently did in Western Europe.
``The personal computer (PC) market in Korea is very vibrant and changes fast. The arrival of Acer will give consumers more choices in a market dominated by local brands like Samsung and LG,'' said an official from Acer's Korean office.
``We are serious about the Korean market. We will deploy tailored service and retail policies and offer our products at reasonable prices. We are confident about competing with anyone in terms of quality and price,'' he said.
The company will release seven personal computer, laptop and netbook models during September, and also a netbook that is ``about 30-percent cheaper'' than current models, which will be around 400,000 won, the official said.
Among netbooks, the Aspire One 751h, which boasts an Intel Atom Z520 CPU, a 11.6-inch widescreen display with a 1366×768 resolution and eight hours of battery life, seems to be the product to look at. The company says it will be sold for around 600,000 won.
Among full-scale laptops, the Timeline T1810, which is to be sold for around 800,000 won, attracts attention.
Asus and MSI aren't too happy about the arrival of their bigger, hometown foe, as it remains to be seen whether Acer will compete with the Samsungs and LGs of the market, or instead takeover the market currently controlled by the smaller Taiwanese companies.
``There is a possibility that Acer will try to gain an early market share by focusing on cheaper products, and that will certainly invade the market where MSI and Asus is safely established,'' said an official from Danawa (www.danawa.com), an online retailer of electronic products.
``Korean consumers are continuing to look for cheap and light laptops, and that has led them to trust lesser-known companies. But they always have been and will be brand sensitive, and Acer, which grew to be a major world player in the past eight years, may deliver both on price and clout.''