Low-cost PCs and WiMAX to mark turning points for Taiwan in the PC market, says Acer chairman

The advent of low-cost PCs and WiMAX are both opportunities for Taiwan to lead the worldwide PC market, according to JT Wang, chairman of Acer.

The main reason PC market growth over the past 10 years saw no significant boost was due to the fact key component suppliers have not supported low cost products, while most makers have given up their focus in the market, said Wang.

When Asustek Computer launched its Eee PC, Acer had doubts about its market opportunity. However, after just two months of sales, Acer quickly realized that low-cost PCs are to become an important turning point for the PC market, and have a chance to open up a new era for the current PC industry.

For every 100 consumers who purchase a low-cost PC, around 30% of sales are to replace 14- and 15-inch mainstream notebooks, meaning the other 70% represent newly opened sales avenues, according to Wang. If vendors can expand the low-cost PC market, benefits will be created for both upstream and downstream companies.

Gross margins for low-cost PCs for branded vendors are around 10%, while notebook OEMs expect to see a gross margin of around 4-5%, noted Wang, adding that if low-cost PCs gain support from the whole industry, a goal of 500 million PC shipments per year could be achieved in just a few years.

Wang also pointed out that he expects Taiwan to a become WiMAX island, leading the way in term of expertise, solutions and infrastructure; and all other countries and companies will need to come to Taiwan in to source solutions.

In order to achieve this goal, WiMAX technology will need to be the key theme for Computex 2008, while effort should be made to hold more events to foster service windows for experience and professional knowledge, long-term cooperation with teams that deal with WiMAX products, sales and services, and to push Taiwan to become a distribution and information exchange center.

Taiwan vendors from the semiconductor, communications module, CPE (customer premise equipment), micro base station, and application software industries would all see huge business opportunities lasting for over 10 years, added Wang.

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