Acer eyes “double figure” share

Laptop turned smartphone manufacturer Acer said it aims to gain a global mobile market share of “double figures” within the next three to five years.

Acer president Aymar de Lencquesaing told Mobile News it will be aggressively gaining market share by widening its portfolio of devices next year.

It currently has nine smartphones available on the market globally since it announced its launch into mobile at the Mobile World Congress in February. It said it will release at least another eight next year.

Its first Android-powered smartphone, the Liquid, will be available by the end of November.

The new user interface provides access to entertainment and web bookmarks. It also has a five-megapixel camera with geo-tagging, self-timer and accelerated auto-focus.

The Liquid also comes with the Spinlets application which allows free streaming of music and videos.

Pricing and distribution is yet to be confirmed.

Acer is number one in the netbook market with a 36 per cent share and is number two in the notebook market behind HP.

de Lencquesaing said: “We did not enter the smartphone market just to gain two per cent of the market.

“We are still babies in the mobile industry and must be humble to say we must walk before we run, but we want to be leaders in mobile.

“The Swiss army knife approach to offering devices will not work – one phone doesn’t fit all. Last year we launched nine new mobile devices and next year we will have a similar strategy.”

de Lencquesaing said it was natural for Acer to enter the smartphone market, but mobile manufacturers entering the laptop market will find it difficult to succeed.

“It is easier for a PC manufacturer to develop smartphones than for a mobile manufacturer to develop PCs.

“The PC business has been around for 30 years and it is now a commodities business where scale is everything. The new players won’t have the scale to compete so they will find it harder in that space.”

Acer is the first netbook manufacturer to launch an Android-powered device, which will be available in the UK this week.

The Aspire One D250 comes with a 10.1 inch LED LCD screen, Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, six hours battery life and a webcam.

It is priced at £249.99 and due out on October 22.