Acer executives expand stake in PC vendor

By Chen Cheng-hui / Staff reporter

Acer Inc (宏碁) chief executive officer Jason Chen (陳俊聖) and other senior executives at the firm last month continued to purchase company shares to show confidence in the PC vendor, Acer’s filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.

The move came as the company’s PC shipments in the second quarter increased 17.6 percent year-on-year, the largest growth among the world’s top five PC vendors, data released by the company and International Data Corp (IDC) showed last week.

Revenue last quarter increased 21.7 percent year-on-year to NT$79.78 billion (US$2.85 billion), the highest for the period in 10 years, the data showed.

Acer has over the past few years developed a corporate culture that encourages ranking officials to buy company shares to express confidence in its products.

Acer founder Stan Shih (施振榮) in 2016 said that ownership in the company would make executives feel responsible for the firm’s long-term development instead of operating the company with a short-term view.

The exchange filing showed that Chen and 10 other executives last month purchased a total of 1.067 million Acer shares at an average price of NT$31.31 per share, spending about NT$33.38 million.

Chen bought 150,000 shares, in addition to 750,000 shares he bought earlier this year, it showed.

Acer shares closed up 0.72 percentage points at NT$27.9 in Taipei trading on Friday.

Shares have gained 17.97 percent so far this year, compared with a 21.47 percent increase in the TAIEX.

Diversification efforts over the past few years have borne fruit for Acer, with stable sales and earnings contributions from investments, while its new products, including 5G laptops, Chromebooks, Predator gaming PCs and products of the ConceptD content creator series, also help it compete with other major brands.

In the second quarter, Acer shipped 6.09 million units worldwide, boosting its market share to 7.3 percent, and helping it become the world’s fifth-largest supplier, IDC said in a report on Monday last week.

Global PC shipments — including desktops, laptops and workstations — reached 83.6 million units, up 13.2 percent from a year earlier, despite global component shortages and logistics issues, the report said.