Money

Acer turns a virtual page

By Han Bingbin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-28 07:50

Gianfranco Lanci, CEO of Acer, introduces the company's latest eReader on Thursday. WANG JING / CHINA DAILY

Acer picked up on the eBook trend and released its LumiRead on Thursday in Beijing, joining a market piled high with eReader devices from Amazon and dozens of Chinese manufacturers.

With a six-inch display and a full keyboard below it, the eReader is only a few millimeters thick. But its feathery appearance is deceptive: the device can hold the texts of 1,500 books.

Officials said the company has signed agreements with eBook retailers in the US and Germany to provide multilingual content. French and Italian content is also expected.

The company also signed an agreement Thursday with Founder, local high-tech company, on strategic cooperation.

Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci said the two companies would cooperate on eReader services and other fields. The move is expected to increase market share for both brands.

Founder's website, www.fanshu. com, Acer's new partner in digital content, was said to be the first open e-commerce platform providing various eBook services, such as search and eBook sharing functions.

Tapping Founder's advantage in digital content, Acer hopes to penetrate the eReader digital content market in China.

Li You, CEO of Founder, said the two companies would remain independent and that no shareholdings or mergers and acquisitions would be involved in the cooperative agreement.

According to Communication Information News, apart from better-known international products, such as Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader, the Chinese mainland now has more than 40 eReader brands. A hundred more are waiting to enter the market.

The newspaper also said that in the first quarter of 2010, almost 250,000 eReaders were sold in China. Hanvon, a Chinese technology company, holds a 66 percent market share.

The newspaper also predicted a massive price war for eReaders.

The market will likely see a gradual decrease in gross profits from eReader sales as the market becomes saturated, according to Communication Information News.