One of the biggest PC makers in the world, Taiwan-based Acer, has reported it has recorded the first quarterly loss in the company"s history. Reuters reports that Acer had a net loss of $234.3 million for the quarter that ended on June 30. That amount is much bigger than what analysts had predicted. The company"s chairman J.T. Wang told investors that the larger loss was due to Acer clearing out excess inventory. It also was due to paying a number of resigning senior executives their severance packages.
Wang warned of hard times ahead for the company, saying that it will be "impossible" for Acer to break even this year. The company has had to deal with sales of its notebooks being affected by the success of Apple"s iPad. However, Wang claims that the company believes the current "fever" for tablet PCs will be going down and that more conventional notebooks will regain some of its lost market share.
Acer could be helped if HP decided to either spin-off or sell its PC business, as the company hinted it might do last week. Commenting on HP"s current situation, Wang said, "They don"t like low margins, low profits; their investors will hold management to do such kinds of things. This kind of trend will not change on Wall Street for maybe the next 10 years." He didn"t comment on if Acer might be interested in buying HP"s PC division. However he did say that Acer would try to satisfy its customers "including HP"s existing customers."