Aaron Lee, Taipei; Joseph Tsai

 

As the PC market will enter the generation of multiple platforms in 2012, Acer chairman JT Wang pointed out that Apple, Google and Wintel will be the three major platforms to drive the growth of the PC industry; however, he expects Apple platform growth will start weakening in the next two years and the major driver will be replaced by rapid growth of Wintel.

Wang also believes that once ultrabook prices drop to US$699 in 2012, the Wintel platform will enter a phase of surging growth.

As for Google, which is mainly pushing its Android operating system to attract consumers to use its services and achieve its goal of expanding into the consumer market, Wang believes that the platform will only achieve flat performance in the future PC industry.

Wang noted that hard drive shortages caused by Thailand's floods suppressed PC shipment performance in the fourth quarter of 2011, but since the recovery of hard drive capacity has been better than expected, he expects the shortage issues will improve in the first quarter of 2012 with suppressed demand to have a chance to return.