Acer calls for profit levelling

Acer's president has called for a fairer division of the spoils in the PC industry this morning, but stopped short of pointing the finger at any profit hoggers.

Gianfranco Lanci, kicking off the vendor's press beano in Madrid, trumpeted the company's progress in recent years, which has seen it take the top spot in notebooks in Europe, finally break into the top five in the US, and take the number three spot worldwide.

But he bemoaned the fact that even though Acer is producing consistent operating profits of three to four per cent, any other industry would consider this a disaster.

"The distribution of profitability in the industry is very questionable," he said.

"A few people are making all the profit. Others are struggling."

However, he predicted this would change as factors other than raw Gigahertz came to the fore. With an increased focus on energy consumption, he said form factor - something the PC vendors have more control over - will come to the fore.

However, Lanci demurred when it came to identifying exactly who was hogging the profit. When asked by one journalist how he proposed to "put the squeeze on Intel", he replied: "I didn't say that and I'm not going to answer. I don't want to put the squeeze on anyone." ®