Acer Looking for 20% Share of Tablet Market in 2011

Acer is looking to achieve something big in the lucrative tablet PC market in 2011. The Taiwan-based computer maker is planning to come up with its first tablet PC in April and has plans to launch 3 Tablet PCs this year.

Recently, Acer Chairman J.T. Wang revealed that the company was aiming to sell 5 to 10 million tablet PCs this year, and thus, grabbing 20% of the market share. Behind the feasibility of this projection, as Mr. Wang believes, is the strong demand for tablet PCs.

Acer, one of the top 3 laptop makers in the world, has recently focused on UK market and taken some initiatives to broaden the distribution channel in this European country. For some reasons, Acer has picked up the UK market to exploit with its tablet PCs and smartphones.

Acer has seen extensive success with netbook and notebooks, but it has perhaps been a bit late for them to enter into the tablet PC market which is already crowded and dominated by Apple iPad. Taiwan-based companies like Acer and Asus are well-known for their low-pricing, but given the astute pricing of iPad 2 it seems Acer would face huge competition from Apple to exploit on even on pricing.

A Number of Under $500 Tablets Coming by June 2011

With demands soaring for tablet PC around the world, the number of competitors in the tablet PC market is also increasing day by day. Samsung Galaxy was released last year to challenge Apple’s iPad. Then last month Motorola released Xoom with the same intention in mind.

Now, a leaked document, acquired by Precentral, indicates there are as much as 9 tablet PCs waiting to be released by June 2011. Among them few will come with 10-inch display and others with 7-inch. The most important thing is pricing. If the leaked document is to be believed, there are at least 8 tablet PCs to be available for less than $500.

Here is the list of tablet PCs waiting in the release queue as the leaked document shows:

Manufacturer	Operating System	Pricing	Schedule
Motorola 10”	First 10” tablet with Android Honeycomb	$649	March 17th
Blackberry 7”	QNX (Blackberry exclusive)	$499, $599, $699 (based on hard drive)	March 27th
Dell 7”	March launch with Android 2.2 (Froyo)	$499	End of March
Samsung 7”	March launch with Android 2.2 (Froyo)	$499	End of March
Acer 7”	First 7” tablet with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)	$399	April
HTC 10”	Android Honeycomb	TBD	June
Dell 10”	Android Honeycomb	$499	June
Acer 10”	Android Honeycomb	$499	June
Toshiba 10”	Android Honeycomb	$499	June
HP 10”	WebOS (HP Exclusive)	$499 - $599 (hard drive)	June
HP 7”	WebOS (HP Exclusive)	TBD	September

No doubt, the list shows a number of lucrative deals including the Acer tablet priced at $399. Its features are also attractive as it comes with a 7-inch display featuring excellent 1,280 X 800 pixel which is same as Motorola Xoom. It also features Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, a dual-core processor, Adobe Flash 10.1 Support, 3G support, Dolby sound, a camera on the front for video calling. However, it is still unknown if the Acer 7-inch device will feature both Wi-Fi and 3G for the $399 pricing.

RIM’s Blackberry PlayBook will be available from 27 March in three price range: $499, $599 and $699- depending on the storage capacity. Besides, Samsung, Dell, HP, HTC and Toshiba will also launch their tablets. Moreover, Dell and HP will come up with both 7-inch and 10-inch tablet PCs.