Acer emerges leader in 'wide' LCD monitor sales in India: IDC survey

Hyderabad: Acer, one of the world''s top three branded PC vendors with 2006 revenues of $11.32 billion, has been ranked No. 1 in the wide LCD monitor market in India followed by Viewsonic and Samsung.

According to IDC's Q3 report, Acer has witnessed a tremendous growth in market share from 9.5 per cent in Q3 2006 to a whopping 22.8 per cent in Q3 2007.  Acer says it had total unit sales of 72,144 in Q3 2007 alone.

"We at Acer are proud to be the first company to actively champion the transition of 15-inch TFT monitors to the ''wide screen'' format, introducing 15-inch wide, 17-inch wide and 19-inch wide TFT monitors in a big way,“ said S Rajendran, general manager, sales and marketing, Acer.  “We have an attractive go big go wide product range with great price points and one of the largest service networks in the country. Our unique channel strategy has had a significant impact in not only growing the LCD wide monitor market but the display market as a whole."

Acer says its success in the LCD monitor market has been driven by its continuous focus on the strategy of go big go wide where in the company constantly checkmated its competition by driving the market on to the bigger and wider form factors and bringing out the latest models first into the market. This has been further supplemented by features like the ''e-key'' which helps the customer to manage the various functionality''s with the touch of a button and hence making the Acer TFTs more user-friendly.

Other factors which are responsible for the phenomenal growth include better features like brightness, enhanced response time and design of the TFTs like the Ferrari co-branded TFTs which have seen a major penetration of Acer TFTs into the home segment.

A key part of the success has also been Acer''s differentiated channel strategy focused on striking partnerships with channels focused on key user segments like Home, SME/SMB, Large accounts and Govt apart from working and reaching out effectively to the vast network of smaller channel partners focused on end user TFT sales which has in turn created a major pull for the products across the channel.

Since its inception in 1976, Acer has  focused on marketing its brand-name IT products around the globe and ranks the world''s No. 3 (Q307) vendor for total PCs and No. 2 for notebooks, with the fastest growth among the top-five players. Acer says its successful merger of Gateway Inc, as a wholly owned subsidiary enables it a global footprint by strengthening its presence in the US and enhancing its strong position in Europe.