“Taiwan’s Acer will buy Gateway for $710 million, creating the world’s No. 3 PC maker and doubling its U.S. presence while dealing a blow to arch-foe Lenovo’ efforts to grow in Europe,” Sheena Lee and Sophie Taylor report for Reuters.
“Acer said the merger would create a company with more than $15 billion in sales and 20 million PCs shipped per year, adding it would keep the Gateway brand in the United States,” Lee and Taylor report. “On a worldwide basis, the tie-up would help Acer — Taiwan’s most recognized global brand — displace Lenovo.”
“The deal would help Acer immediately double its U.S. market share, combining its own 5.2 percent of the market with Gateway’s 5.6 percent, according to second-quarter market data from IDC,” Lee and Taylor report.
“The deal is expected to be completed by December and the merged company would still be a distant third in the United States, behind No. 2 Hewlett-Packard at 23.6 percent and market leader Dell at 28.4 percent, according to IDC,” Lee and Taylor report. “A merged Acer and Gateway would have sold about 18.6 million PCs worldwide last year, or about 8 percent of global sales, compared to Dell’s 39.1 million units, Hewlett-Packard’s 38.8 million and Lenovo’s 16.6 million, according to IDC.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: IDC placed Apple in a virtual tie with Gateway for 3rd in the U.S. in Q2 07. According to IDC, Apple shipped 960,000 Macs in the U.S. to Gateway’s 965,000 units for 5.6% market share for each. Apple’s Mac business is growing at roughly three times the PC industry average. For the quarter ended June 30, 2007, Apple shipped 1.764 million Macs worldwide, representing 33 percent growth over the year-ago quarter and exceeding the previous company record for quarterly Mac shipments by over 150,000 units.
