Acer loses its Q1 2011 market share position to Apple in the U.S.

More bad news is coming for Acer according to the latest market share breakdown by the IDC market evaluation company.

The data shows that Apple has surpassed Acer in both notebook and PC shipment numbers in the U.S. for Q1 2011 with a total of 1.375 million units at an 8.5% market share. This is in contrast to the 1.331 million units and 8.3% share of Acer.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Apple was able to jump pass Acer not through increasing its own shipment numbers, but through Acer’s dramatically lowered shipment numbers compared to 2010. The Taiwan-based manufacturer lowered its worldwide shipment numbers by 15.8% compared to the year before, resulting in about 9.039 million units. In the U.S., this drop was even more dramatic, at a high 42.1% reduction from Q1 2010 numbers.

Senior analyst Jay Chou of IDC partly blames tablets for the tremendous drop in Acer’s numbers. According to Electronista, Chou claims that many users already have personal computers and are currently looking for unique experiences instead of another notebook, a void that tablets fill in quite nicely. He also mentions that computer manufacturers may need to begin refocusing on products with “compelling user experiences” instead of just adding “horsepower” to current lineups. Better and faster laptops may not get a company very far in the long run if the only thing that changes is hardware specifications, which is something Acer can immensely improve on.

The lower than expected shipment numbers reinforce earlier reports about Acer increasing its tablet shipments while sacrificing netbook production.

In light of all the unfortunate events, Acer has been in the middle of a major company reconstruction in order to reevaluate its long term goals and methods. A logo redesign was released just yesterday, indicating a public image overhaul as well.

(June 25, 2011 correction) - Second paragraph has been edited due to misinterpretation of source data. Original paragraph read:

"The data shows that Apple has surpassed Acer in both notebook shipment numbers and market share in the U.S. for Q1 2011, with 1.375 million units and 8.5% share, respectively, versus the 1.331 million units and 8.3% share of Acer."

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