Joumana Karam – Head of Marketing & Product BU, talks to Channel Post MEA about the exciting products unveiled by Acer at its GPC themed ‘made for humanity’
With the rapid digitization happening, how has Acer performed?
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought great changes in people’s lives and pushed everyone into the digital world. We have seen a strong demand for PCs and monitors worldwide, as well as in the Middle East and this trend is still ongoing through 2021. Acer like other IT players, has benefited from the rapid digitization. We recently announced our Q3 2021 preliminary results with a 19.5% YoY growth, where our worldwide consolidated revenues for Q3 in 2021 reached the highest mark in seven years. The growth came in every segment including notebooks, desktops and monitors. On a local level, from a year-to-date perspective, we have grown 16% on revenue in the Middle East.
How has Acer supported its partners in this region during the last one year?
We have been facing the industry-wide component shortages, as well as challenges in the freight industry over the past few months. Our primary concerns have been business continuity and the health of our customers, employees, and partners. We are collaborating closely with our partners on a daily basis to ensure that our customers have access to our services and our products. We closely monitor the status of our supply chain and proactively adjust to respond to market demand.
How has Acer adapted its product to take advantage of the top technology trends of 2021, such as the AI, VR, AR, etc?
Acer continues to evolve with the industry and changing lifestyles by pushing for innovation in existing businesses and expanding to new territories. As a lean organization, we have the capability of bringing new technology to market quickly. Our Acer’s Value Lab has gradually invested more resources in developing AI solutions with some of our subsidiaries, big data and more, while making sure that our solutions and products are sustainable, eco-friendly, and green. We have more products coming up with 5G, a creator laptop with innovative 3D modeling and rendering glass-free. Through our subsidiary Acer medical, we are developing an AI-assisted medical solutions for the global markets.
With the demand for gaming and esports picking up, what exciting features have Acer to offer to its customers in addition to its ultra slim and rapid cooling gaming laptops?
Acer offer a comprehensive gaming ecosystem with a broad range of innovative gaming products that satisfy all the gamers’ needs, including our advanced thermal solutions, gaming social platform Planet 9, gaming cockpit Thronos Air, energy drinks Predator Shot, to name a few. We continue to sponsor some of the largest global e-sports tournaments including Rainbow 6, Intel Extreme Masters, as well as host our own regional events like Predator League and Predator Sim Racing Cup. This press conference, we will expand the gaming portfolio with new desktop dedicated to hard-core gamers. We will also introduce a new gaming projector to provide a smooth and seamless gaming experience.
Why is this year’s theme for next@acer ‘made for humanity’?
This year our global press conference has a very special theme “made for Humanity”. It shows how Acer strives to make a positive impact on humanity and the environment through our product innovations. The recent years have brought about significant changes to how people interact with technology, and during this press conference, we shared how we as Acer have been responding to these new trends by focusing on sustainable solutions together with our employees and supply chain partners for a greener earth and a greener future for humanity.
What exciting product launches can we expect from Acer?
The highlight of our press conference is the expansion of our lineup of planet conscious Vero products, in line with our commitment to a green future. These eco-friendly products include our green PC Aspire Vero, TravelMate Vero, a Vero monitor and a Vero mini desktop with some Vero accessories. Also, in continuation with our focus on enhancing the health of our customers, we are expanding our antimicrobial product portfolio to a wide range of categories including laptops, displays, mice and apparel such as the Enduro Urban N3 and Chromebook Spin 314.
For the creators, we introduce ConceptD 7 SpatialLabs Edition notebook that bring eye-popping, glasses-free stereoscopic 3D to designers and developers. The mobile workstation comes with Acer SpatialLabs, a suite of optical, display and sensory technologies with real-time 3D rendering capabilities.
On the other hand, we are expanding our gaming ecosystem with a new gaming desktop the powerful Predator Orion 7000 with the latest specifications in the market, new 4k smart LED projector Predator GD711 that is compatible with both console and PC gaming systems and new Nitro gaming monitor. We’re also excited to introduce a new 55-inch large Predator gaming desk.
With the International E-waste Day (14th October) approaching, what is Acer doing to ensure that your products and your channels are embracing the ideas of sustainability?
The Acer Group has joined the RE100 initiative, and our CEO has pledged to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2035. We have launched “Earthion” in May 2021, a platform where our employees, supply chain partners and external partners collaborate to help tackle environmental challenges through innovative and integrated solutions in product design, packaging material, logistics routes, and so on.
Acer was awarded with a silver class distinction in the S&P Global sustainability Yearbook 2021 for the Top ESG scoring companies. We were shortlisted for RE100 Leadership Awards 2021 for Clean Energy Efforts. On the other hand, Acer ranked among the “100 most sustainably managed companies in the world” by The Wall Street Journal. Our Aspire Vero won Red Dot 2021 Design Award for its 100% sustainable packaging.
On a local level, we were the only IT company to be awarded the Arabia CSR award for the second year in a row where we were 2nd runner up in the small and medium business category.
