. acer inc. headquarters in new taipei taiwan native name type public traded as lse acid twse 2353 industry computer hardware electronics predecessor multitech international founded august 1 1976 ; 40 years ago 1976 08 01 as multitech founder stan shih headquarters xizhi new taipei taiwan area served worldwide key people stan shih chairman and president products desktops laptops netbooks servers smartphones tablet computers storage handhelds monitors televisions led lcd & plasma video projectors e business revenue nt 263.8 billion 2015 1 operating income nt 1.38 billion 2015 1 net income nt 604 million 2015 1 total assets nt 171.7 billion 2015 1 total equity nt 65.8 billion 2015 1 number of employees 7 967 2015 2 subsidiaries gateway inc. packard bell emachines escom website acer.com acer inc. e s r or z r ; chinese ; pinyin h ngq g f n y uxi n g ngs lit . hongqi corporation ltd. ; commonly known as acer stylised as acer or formerly as acer & acer is a taiwanese multinational hardware and electronics corporation specialising in advanced electronics technology and is headquartered in xizhi new taipei city taiwan . acer s products include desktop and laptop pcs tablet computers servers storage devices virtual reality devices displays led lcd and plasma televisions smartphones and peripherals . it also provides e business services to businesses governments and consumers . in 2015 acer was the sixth largest personal computer vendor in the world . 3 in the early 2000s acer implemented a new business model shifting from a manufacturer to a designer marketer and distributor of products while performing production processes via contract manufacturers . 4 in addition to its core business acer owns the largest franchised computer retail chain acerland . 5 contents 1 history 1.1 2013 re organisation 2 acquisitions 3 figures 4 operations 4.1 north america 4.2 australia 4.3 india 4.4 indonesia 4.5 europe 5 linux 6 logo 7 products 7.1 business desktops 7.2 business notebooks 7.3 chromebooks 7.4 computer displays 7.5 consumer desktops 7.6 consumer notebooks 7.7 home network solutions 7.8 mobile phones 7.9 netbooks 7.10 nettops 7.11 projectors 7.12 servers and storage 7.13 tablets 7.14 television 7.15 other discontinued devices 8 brands 9 environmental record 10 sponsorships 10.1 formula one engine results 11 see also 12 references 13 external links history edit acer was founded by stan shih his wife carolyn yeh and a group of five others as multitech in 1976 headquartered in hsinchu city taiwan . it began with eleven employees and us 25 000 in capital . initially it was primarily a distributor of electronic parts and a consultant in the use of microprocessor technologies . it produced the micro professor mpf i training kit then two apple ii clones ; the microprofessor ii and iii before joining the emerging ibm pc compatible market and becoming a significant pc manufacturer . the company was renamed acer in 1987 . in 1998 acer reorganised into five groups acer international service group acer sertek service group acer semiconductor group acer information products group and acer peripherals group . to dispel complaints from clients that acer competed with its own products and to alleviate the competitive nature of the branded sales vs. contract manufacturing businesses in 2000 the company spun off the contract business renaming it wistron corporation . the restructuring resulted in two primary units brand name sales and contract manufacturing . in 2001 the company got rid of its manufacturing units benq and wistron to focus resources on design and sales . acer increased worldwide sales while simultaneously reducing its labor force by identifying and using marketing strategies that best utilized their existing distribution channels . by 2005 acer employed a scant 7 800 people worldwide . revenues rose from us 4.9 billion in 2003 6 to us 11.31 billion in 2006 . acer s north american market share has slipped over the past few years while in contrast the company s european market share has risen . 7 in the mid 2000s years consumer notebooks have been almost the sole growth drivers for the pc industry and acer s exceptionally low overheads and dedication to the channel had made it one of the main beneficiaries of this trend . 8 acer grew quickly in europe in part by embracing the use of more traditional distribution channels targeting retail consumers when some rivals were pursuing online sales and business customers . in 2007 acer bought gateway in the usa and packard bell in europe and became the number 3 world provider of computers and number 2 for notebooks and achieved significant improvement in profitability . acer has been striving to become the world s largest pc vendor in the belief that the goal can help it achieve economy of scale and garner higher margin . 9 but such a reliance on the high volume low value pc market made acer exposed when buying habits changed . 2013 re organisation edit in november 2013 chairman and ceo j.t. wang and president jim wong both resigned due to the company s bad financial performance . wang had already been reportedly due to leave acer at year end to be replaced by wong . acer founder stan shih has taken over as board chairman and interim president as the company searches for a new candidate to assume the role of presidency . the position of ceo will be eliminated and its responsibilities transferred to the chairman or president according to acer in order to improve decision making efficiency . 10 11 12 on december 23 acer named jason chen vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at taiwan semiconductor manufacturing as its new president and ceo effective jan. 1 . 13 entertainment industry executive and former actress nancy hu was named cfo and spokesperson as of may 1 2014 . 14 acquisitions edit in 1988 acer acquired counterpoint computers . in 1990 acer acquired altos computer corporation . in 1997 acer acquired texas instruments notebook computer business . on 27 august 2007 acer announced plans to acquire its us based rival gateway inc. for us 710 million . acer s chairman jen tang wang stated that the acquisition completes acer s global footprint by strengthening our united states presence . 15 included in this acquisition was the emachines brand . in january 2008 acer announced that it had acquired a controlling interest of 75 % of packard bell . 16 in march 2008 acer acquired e ten . in 2009 acer acquired 29.9 % of olidata . in august 2010 acer and founder technology signed a memorandum of mutual understanding to strengthen their long term pc business cooperation . in july 2011 acer inc. bought igware inc. for 320 million to try to enter the potentially lucrative cloud market . 17 igware creates cloud software and infrastructure tools for devices . 18 figures edit 29 april 2010 19 acer announced revenue in q1 rose 36 percent year on year to nt 162.1 billion us 5.2 billion and its net profit increased 63 percent to 3.29 billion new taiwan dollars us 104.7 million ; 27 percent of revenue comes from the u.s. gianfranco lanci announced that acer will launch 4 new smartphones by q3 2010 and a series of internet devices by the end of may which will run version 4.0 of its shell user interface . according to gartner and idc acer now ranks no. 1 worldwide in notebook shipments . 20 operations edit north america edit acer america headquarters in san jose acer america corporation headquartered in san jose california is a member of the acer group . acer s r & d engineering manufacturing and marketing operations in the united states and canada are handled by acer america . the u.s. headquarters was opened with a staff of three in 1985 as multitech electronics usa in mountain view california . in 1986 the u.s. headquarters was moved to san jose california . in september 1990 acer acquired altos computer systems one of the top manufacturers of multi user and networked unix computer systems for commercial markets . in february 1997 acer acquired texas instruments mobile computing business including the award winning travelmate and extensa notebook lines making acer the fourth leading notebook manufacturer in the united states . acer america s canadian office in mississauga ontario handles repair of acer gateway and e machine notebooks and desktop pcs for eastern canada . acer has several facilities in temple texas including a repair facility a parts warehouse and a call centre . in the words of its chief executive j.t. wang building a brand is very different in the us . the investment at the initial stage has to be very big otherwise there is almost no impact . 21 australia edit the australian subsidiary of acer is acer computer australia aca . the subsidiary was established in 1990 and is currently australia s third largest personal computer vendor behind hewlett packard australia and dell australia and new zealand . acer computer australia has australia s highest overall market share in notebook pc and tablet pc sales . the company is also australia s leading pc vendor in government and education markets . acer computer australia has 480 employees as of 2006 . india edit acer s subsidiary in india is acer india pvt limited and was incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of acer computer international ltd. in 1999 . it is a notable vendor in key segments such as education desktop computers and low profile notebooks for education . the headquarters are in bangalore india . indonesia edit pt acer indonesia is a wholly owned subsidiary of acer inc and distribute their products through their main distributor pt dragon computer & communication . acer is currently second largest computer vendor in indonesia . in q1 2016 acer recorded 81 % market share in windows tablet in indonesia . europe edit from the late 90 s to mid 2000 s acer had computer factories in europe too . the business area was the whole emea . in the netherlands under the name of acer ims bv there were two factories acer laptop factory in den bosch and acer and ibm desktop factory in tilburg . 22 23 acer had also facilities in germany under the name of ims in ahrensburg and hamburg . the factory in tilburg produced also in limited quantities various acer server models and even tv set top boxes . in their prime the monthly production could reach over 40.000 desktop pcs per month well rivalling the main acer factories in usa and taiwan . in year 2000 acer extracted its computer production under the branch of wistron . also the dutch branch acer ims bv and the german brand ims were merged with this . despite the successful production model developed in the dutch factories both plants were relocated in 2002 . the laptop factory was relocated to mainland china and the desktop factory after ending the ibm desktop production was relocated hungary . 24 soon the hungarian factory was also moved to mainland china . citation needed acer is a popular brand in bulgaria as well . linux edit acer has shipped some of their notebooks and more recently netbooks with various linux operating system distributions including ubuntu linpus android in a dual boot environment with windows xp and google chrome os . they have also launched a line of smartphones and tablets with android . logo edit acer inc. logo history 1987 2001 2001 2011 2011 present from 1987 until 2001 the company used a red and blue logo with a diamond to the right and the a and r capitalised . on march 8 2001 a new logo was introduced in which the acer diamond was abandoned . it was created by landor associates . the new logo came out following the spin off of acer s contract manufacturing business to focus on its brand business . the latest