Acer eyes Indochina, Myanmar

• Published: 22/10/2012 at 07:46 AM    

Acer, the world's fourth-largest personal computer maker, has set up its regional service and maintenance centre in Thailand to prepare for the advent of the Asean Economic Community in 2015.

The 50-million-baht facility will serve as a hub for Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, said Sophon Panchim, the service manager at Acer Computer (Thailand).
He said the facility will improve service speed by up to 80% and reduce logistic costs by 20%.

It will also provide after-sales service to the government's One Tablet per Child scheme.
"We expect 500 million baht in annual service revenue from this new facility by 2015, up from 300 million baht in 2011," said Mr Sophon.

He said service revenue from these markets will account for 10% of Acer's global service revenue by 2015.

Acer (Thailand) expects service revenue to make up 1.5% of its total sales this year and 5% in each of the next three years.

Boonyaphat Choobunjerd, the head of Indochina operations at Acer Computer (Thailand), said the company may spend US$10 million to open offices in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

The move would be aimed at capitalising on growing PC spending after the AEC kicks off.
Myanmar is the first of the three being considered for an office due to its attractive foreign investment incentives and large population of 48 million, he said.

Mr Boonyaphat said this area is a growing market for notebooks due to the large number of corporate users.

It is expected to contribute double-digit revenue to the Acer Group by 2015.
Acer led the notebook segment in Thailand last year.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/telecom/317859/