{"id":226769,"date":"2018-02-21T07:24:19","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T05:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=226769"},"modified":"2018-02-21T07:24:19","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T05:24:19","slug":"acer-seeks-new-life-through-gamers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/hardware\/226769\/acer-seeks-new-life-through-gamers\/","title":{"rendered":"Acer seeks new life through gamers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Acer Inc is finally showing signs of life. Now it\u2019s hoping a growing legion of gamers will help pull it out of a multi-year rut.<\/p>\n

Once the global leader in laptop sales, Acer is\u00a0counting on high-end gear such as displays and slick gaming rigs to sustain a recovery, with the company projected to show its first annual revenue growth in seven years.<\/p>\n

Chief executive officer Jason Chen argued in an interview that gaming and esports will buttress a turnaround effort based on linking its hardware to virtual reality and artificial intelligence-based applications.<\/p>\n

Acer is one of the highest profile victims of the post-smartphone PC implosion. Despite surging since reporting better-than-expected profit in November, its shares are still down almost 80% from a decade\u2019s high in 2010.<\/p>\n

But while global PC sales fell again last year, products targeted at serious gamers rose to between 13% and 15% of Acer\u2019s revenue, Chen said in the interview.<\/p>\n

Revenue from gaming gear almost doubled in January, Chen told reporters Wednesday.\u00a0He also shed light on plans to hive off different divisions, confirming that Acer will apply to Taiwanese regulators to float StarVR –\u00a0its virtual reality venture with Sweden\u2019s Starbreeze AB – and its smart parking systems business.<\/p>\n

The Taiwanese company\u2019s\u00a0 shares gained as much as 2.9%.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only other sport bigger than esports is soccer, the World Cup,\u201d Chen,\u00a0who took up his post at the start of 2014, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television this month. \u201cThe sky is the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acer faces competition from the likes of Razer Inc to Asus and MSI in everything from gaming mice to headsets. But its growing momentum in gaming gear may stem from price competitiveness.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s top-of-the-line Predator rigs\u00a0have won strong reviews for design and performance and, at up to $2,500 apiece, compares favorably with the likes of Dell\u2019s Alienware machines.<\/p>\n

Morgan Stanley equity analyst Melrose Chiu expects Acer\u2019s gaming sales to soar 70% this year – but other product segments should remain flat.<\/p>\n

Chiu however is one of five analysts to have downgraded Acer in the past three months, citing its pricey valuation.<\/p>\n

Chen in particular talked up Acer\u2019s prospects in pro-gaming. Esports revenue is expected to surge an average of more than 32% annually to $1.5 billion through 2020, according to gaming consultancy Newzoo. And viewership for competitive match-ups isn\u2019t expected to ease anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Newzoo estimates 385 million people watched esports in 2017; this year\u2019s Super Bowl attracted a US audience of 103.4 million, its lowest in nine years.<\/p>\n

He was careful however to emphasize that Acer will stick to its fundamentals – PCs – even as it moves upscale.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t take up more than 50 percent of our revenue but it will grow to more than where we are today,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Read: Acer launches online store in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acer Inc is finally showing signs of life. Now it\u2019s hoping a growing legion of gamers will help pull it out of a multi-year rut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":5674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1387,26],"class_list":["post-226769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-acer","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226773,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226769\/revisions\/226773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}