Taiwan-based Acer has announced that it plans to acquire Gateway, Inc. for US$710 million. The move would help it become the world’s third largest PC maker with over US$15 billion in revenues and shipments in excess of 20 million PC units per year. The combination of Acer and Gateway is expected to result in significant revenue and cost synergies. The considerable increase in scale will result in reductions in per unit procurement and component costs for both companies. This combination also creates a real opportunity for the cross-selling of product portfolios by leveraging the customer relationships of both Acer and Gateway.
Acer plans to retain the Gateway brand name which has stronger brand recognition in the US than Acer. The deal will help it double its US marketshare from its current 5.2 percent to over 10 percent.
The acquisition is expected to close by December 2007.