Acer sees 10-15 pct shortage of hard disks in Q4

Reuters: Taiwan’s Acer Inc, the world’s No.4 PC vendor by sales, expects a 10 to 15 per cent shortage of hard disk drive supplies in the fourth quarter after floods in Thailand hit many makers, Corporate President Jim Wong told a briefing on Wednesday.

Wong said the impact in the first quarter was uncertain, but the company had passed on most of the higher costs of the drives to end-users.

He added that Acer maintained its guidance that it would see a break-even to a loss in the fourth quarter and a loss for the full year.

The Taiwanese PC vendor has said it expected fourth quarter sales to fall as much as 10 per cent from the previous three months and that it would raise prices after the flooding in Thailand disrupted supplies of hard disk drives for PCs.

Jim said sales of its new Ultrabook thin computers were on track to meet the company’s target of 250,000 to 300,000 units in the fourth quarter. Acer, which is betting on the sales of Ultrabook for next year, also said it expected the prices of the new device to fall starting in the second half of 2012.

“In 2013, we may see prices at $499; but next year $799-899 will still be more popular,” said Wong.



Wong said tablets would contribute 7-8 per cent of revenue this year and the same level next year.

The company plans to launch a quad core tablet using Google’s (GOOG.O) Android operating system and a tablet on the second generation of Microsoft’s Window 7 soon.