Acer's fortunes continue downturn, but the company has a radical plan to recover

By Christian de Looper March 25, 2016

Jeremy Kaplan/Digital Trends

Acer is in dire straights, and it’s taking drastic action in response. Its splitting itself in two.

The company had a bit of a rough time last year. Revenue was down 20 percent, and net income was down a hefty 66 percent, sitting at $18.3 million.

Because of this, the company has announced a few major changes, with the hope that these changes will help turn its financial woes around. Basically, Acer is dividing itself up into two business groups, which can, and likely will, act independently of one another.

The first of the two new divisions is the Core Business group, and it basically will control most of the things you normally think of when you think Acer – laptops, desktop computers, tablets, research and development, and so on.

The second division is called the New Business team, and will basically be in charge of things like smartphones and wearables, as well as Acer’s Bring Your Own Cloud service.

An investment holding company is also being created to manage the New Business division.

So what does all this mean for you? Well, the goal is that the new divisions will allow for Acer’s different product teams to run more efficiently, able to focus only on the products within its ecosystem. This should lead to more and better products, and development in different product categories should ultimately be accelerated.

“The division will encourage the optimization of each business model, enhance the allocation of operational resources, propel organic growth, and accelerate the overall company transformation,” said Acer in a statement.

In 2010 Acer was the second largest PC company, according to Gartner, but by 2015 it had fallen down to the 6th largest, despite the fact that many of its competitors had started shifting their attention to things like smartphones and tablets. Perhaps the changes in the company will help it regain its former glory.

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