Taiwan's Acer denies plan to open notebook plant in Brazil

Oct 11, 2009, 9:08 GMT

   Taipei - Taiwan's computer giant Acer Inc. on Sunday denied a press report which said it planned to open a notebook personal computer plant in Brazil.

   'The company has no information on that. Personally, I think it is unlikely, 'Acer spokesman Wang Tao-hsiung said.

   'It is totally unlikely that Acer plans to build a notebook PC plant in Brazil. If you say it is a desktop PC plant, that could be remotely likely, even though that is not being planned either,' he said.

   Wang was responding to Saturday's report in Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, which said that Acer, after withdrawing from Brazil for 15 years, plans to return to local market and open a notebook PC plant.

   The state reason was that currently Acer ships its notebook PC and the smaller netbook PC to Brazil via Paraguay and sells them at low price in Brazil, which has made its computers popular in Brazil.

   However, Brazil has cut tariffs on information products and is offering incentives to retailers, which has made Acer's transshipment through Paraguay unnecessary, Folha said.

   Established in 1976, Acer reported 2007 revenues of 14 billion US dollars. It has a worldwide staff of 5,000 employees.

   In 2007, Acer overtook Dell and became the world's No 2 notebook computer vendor after buying US computer maker Gateway in October of that year.

   The purchase also helped Acer overtake Lenovo as the third-biggest personal computer maker in the world. Acer hopes to overtake HP as the world's leading laptop seller by 2011.