Case 1-3
Acer Inc.
Acer Inc. is a leading marketer of notebook and desktop PCs.
The company, which posted sales of $11.3 billion in 2006, also produces other products such as flat-screen monitors and personal digital assistants. As Taiwan gained a reputation as the “tech workshop of the world,” Acer was able to become Taiwan’s number one exporter by manufacturing and marketing computers sold under its own brand name. Acer also produced equipment on an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) basis for well-known global companies such as IBM, Dell, and Hitachi. As company founder, chairman, and CEO, Stan Shih built Acer Inc. into one of
Taiwan’s most successful companies.
Despite Acer’s success, the company had trouble breaking into the American market. Between 1995 and 1997, Acer’s U.S. market share dropped from 15 to 5 percent. In the late 1990s, Shih noted,
“In the United States and Europe, we are relatively weak. The local players there are very strong. The problem is that we don’t have good experience in marketing in those regions. It’s a people issue, not a product issue.” Shih has discovered that building brands in the business-to-business market is easier than building brands in the business-to-consumer market. “Business-to-consumer brands have more value but also face more challenges. People involved in business-to-business are usually rational, but consumers in business-to-consumer are usually emotional in choosing their brands,” he says.
In 2000, in a major restructuring, Acer spun off its manufacturing operations. The reason: Shih wanted to transform Acer from a top 10 global PC manufacturer into a “marketing and services powerhouse.” Shih also refocused Acer’s distribution and marketing on the vast, fast-growing China market. Acer and other key

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ISBN 0-558-55519-5
Global Marketing, Sixth