Acer Scaling Back on Notebook & Tablet Sales Forecast

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Competition is tough in the portable computer market, and it seems Acer is feeling the effect of tablets surpassing notebook computers in popularity and has halved its sales forecast for 2011.

Acer is the world’s second largest computer maker by volume, next to HP. However, the Taiwanese company is planning to cut its estimates for tablet and notebook shipments within 2011, citing a difficult economy for consumers and the issue with choosing between notebooks and tablets. Acer seems to be fazed with the fact that Apple has become the favorite of the tablet market, with more than 80% market share. The fact that Acer competes in the Android tablet space with a whole slew of products from Samsung, Asus, HTC and other firms doesn’t help. Brand mindshare is important, and Acer is likely to have difficulty establishing itself, say, in the face of the iPad 2 or the Asus Eee Pad Transformer.

Still, Acer’s forecast involves 2.5 to 3 million units of notebook computers and tablets shipped for 2011. We’ll see how this pans out, as Acer is reportedly dumping 3 million units of older generation laptops in Europe, with the hopes of clearing the production line for newer products.

If Acer is bowing out from the tablet game this early, does this signal that other companies don’t stand a chance against the more dominant brands?