Acer Sees Sales of 5-7 Million Netbooks This Year

Acer, the world's third largest PC vendor, expects this year to sell five million to seven million netbooks, a new term for handheld devices such as ultramobile PCs and mobile Internet devices (MIDs), its president said Wednesday.

"I believe that it can be a huge product line in the future," said Gianfranco Lanci, president of Acer, at the company's first-quarter investor's conference in Taipei.

He predicts that netbooks will take market share away from desktop PCs, but that laptop sales won't be affected by the devices.

The company lumps low-cost laptops together with netbooks, which are aimed at people looking for a handheld device with a PC-like Internet experience, Lanci said. Such devices are expected to weigh less than 1 kilogram.

Acer will face stiff competition. Asustek Computer, which launched the low-cost Eee PC laptop last year to rave reviews, is targeting sales of 5 million units this year. Several other companies plan to market such devices as well.

Acer plans to launch its first ultra low-cost laptop PC armed with Intel's Atom microprocessor at the Computex trade show in Taipei this June.