Annual global demand for tablet PCs to rise to 50 million units in 2-3 years, says Acer chairman

As demand for smart handheld devices continues to grow, global sales of tablet PCs are expected to quickly increase to 50 million units per year in 2-3 years, with open-platform vendors expected to have a combined global market share three to four times that of the Apple iPad, according to Acer chairman JT Wang who is also president for the Taipei Computer Association (TCA).

As for smartphone industry, Wang pointed out that global smartphone shipments reached 190 million units in 2009 with about 46 million units supplied by Taiwan makers, an annual production value of NT$500 billion (US$15.64 billion) and he believes Taiwan players should be able to boost the value even higher to NT$2-3 trillion per year if they start putting more focus on the industry since Taiwan already has a strong base for related component production.

For Acer's revenues performance in the future, Wang expects the company's third quarter-revenues to grow 10-15% sequentially from NT$150.2 billion in the second, while revenues in the second half to also see a growth of 10-15% compared to NT$312.3 billion in the first half.