Taiwanese brand Acer has decided to call it quits in India as far as smartphone sales are concerned, which has surpassed the US to become the second biggest market for smartphones in the world.
Acer has been unable to compete with the large number of international brands in the subcontinent. Several government policies, like Make in India which was made to encourage encourage multinational, as well as domestic, companies to manufacture their products in India, has severely hampered their strategies.
“The change in government policies of Make in India and other aspects, our realisation has been that it is too much of a market which is left to the smaller brands rather than any larger brands trying to enter it at this particular stage,” Harish Kohli, Managing Director, Acer India said.
“Today, mobiles have become a commodity from a price-point basis, rather than an experience basis. There are very few products based on experience. When you are into that kind of a space, it is a decision you need to take, whether to produce a quality product and bleed or just copy others and make a product for a particular price-point,” he added.
That’s not the only cause of Acer’s downfall in India as well. The brand failed to pursue online sales like its competitors such as OnePlus and Xiaomi.
While we haven’t heard of anything official, we’ve also been hearing rumors of Acer’s smartphone pullout in the Philippines as well. Several sources with key distributors here in the Philippines have confirmed that Acer Philippines is pulling out their mobile phones, and sticking to selling tablets and notebooks. Our sources tell us that Acer may start bundling old phone stock with their notebooks to clear inventory.
