Taiwan's Acer posts third consecutive quarterly profit

Taiwan's struggling personal computer maker Acer said Thursday it made a net profit of Tw$651 million ($21.38 million) in the three months to September, its third profitable quarter in a row.

The company attributed the result to a good product mix, new product announcements and back-to-school demand.

The figure compared with a net profit of Tw$485 million in the previous quarter and a net loss of Tw$13.1 billion in the same period last year that had brought down chairman and CEO J.T. Wang.

Revenue in the third quarter came in at Tw$85.7 billion, down 7.0 percent on-year but up 5.3 percent from the previous quarter.

According to IDC's Q3 2014 data for PCs worldwide, Acer's shipment rose 13.3 percent year-on-year, compared with a decline of 0.5 percent for the global sector.

Acer expects steady growth to continue into the fourth quarter due to seasonal promotions.

The company started swinging to profit in the first quarter following a series of reforms initiated late last year by founder Stan Shih, who returned as chairman and interim president after two top executives quit over the firm's poor performance.

Shih founded Acer in 1976 and built it into the world's second largest PC maker in its heyday, and one of the best known Taiwanese brands internationally, before retiring in 2004.

But Acer's fortunes have worsened in recent years as sales have been hit by competition from Apple and other rivals.

In January, Acer vowed to formulate product strategy, production planning and inventory control with more caution after it posted a third consecutive full-year net loss in 2013, while senior executives have taken voluntary salary cuts of 30 percent.

In June, Acer named co-founder George Huang to succeed Shih as chairman. Shih had relinquished his positions of CEO and president to Jason Chen, a former marketing executive at leading microchip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in December last year.