Acer India, a part of the Taiwan-headquartered $19.9-billion computer manufacturer Acer Inc, wants to address the untapped potential in smaller towns of India by extending its reach to 1,000 towns by December 2011.

Speaking to Business Line , Mr S Rajendran, Chief Marketing officer, Acer (India) said, “We have our presence in 700 towns through our 4,000 Acer Galleries and we plan to touch 1,000 cities with around 5,000 Acer Galleries.”

Acer, which slipped by two positions in global ranking to No.4 because of its exposure to Europe, has gained in India and trounced HP to get to the second slot.

Speaking about the strategy for India, Mr Rajendran said that while the company would focus on tablets in the top six cities of India, it was betting on desktops, laptops and net books for the rest of India. “The tablet is still a tertiary device and is used for consumption of information as opposed to PCs, which are used for creation of information. Over the next two years, I think that the PC is still relevant.”

One of the reasons why PCs were relevant, he said, was because of the fact that connectivity and affordability in the hinterland had gone up, though potential was still untapped. “There are only around five or six PCs per thousand in India, as opposed to a country like China, which has around six times this figure.”

Mr Rajendran said that though Acer was pushing PCs, it was committed to tablets and pointed out that in areas where information is consumed, like education, it could be relevant. “But the business model will have to fall in place.” The company has tablets based on both Android and Windows.

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