Acer sees a glimmer of hope after its second consecutive annual loss-- Chromebooks show relatively strong sales even as Windows 8 fails to boost PC sales.
According to Bloomberg 5-10% of Acer US PC shipments consist of Chromebooks (such as the C7) since Google revealed the free notebook OS, a ratio the company expects to "remain sustainable" in the long term.
Acer now also considers selling Chromebooks outside the US.
“Windows 8 is still not successful” Acer president Jim Wong tells Bloomberg. “The whole market didn’t come back to growth after the Windows 8 launch, that’s a simple way to judge if it is successful or not.”
According to Wong Chromebooks are "more secure", providing early adopters with more value.
Acer Q4 2012 shipments are down by -28% Y-o-Y, while overall Q4 2012 global PC shipments are down by -4.9% Y-o-Y according to Gartner, partly due to consumers buying tablets instead of PCs.
The past year has not been kind to the company-- as well as the drops in shipments, its losses are further impacted by a $120m write-off on the value of the Gateway, Packard Bell and eMachines brands.
As a result Acer will not release Windows RT devices until at least until the back-to-school season as it is still evaluating the platform. In the meantime the company also sets to build up its smartphone business, with hopes for sales reaching 1.5m by end 2013.
Go Acer Sees Success in Chrome; Windows Fails to Drive Sales (Bloomberg)