ATHENS, 20 September 2005 — On the sidelines of Acer’s Global Press Conference 2005, Krishna Murthy, Acer’s general manager Middle East, announced that Acer will be setting up an assembly facility in Saudi Arabia. Consultants KPMG will be advising Acer on how to proceed, with arrangements decided by the end of this year.
“With regards to having a Saudi assembly operation, already from the headquarters side we have the approval to set up a Saudi office and a Saudi assembly facility,” Murthy said. “We are trying to select the right partner for the assembly facility and the right mode of working for the Saudi operations.”
In the Middle East Africa region, Acer already has PC assembly units in Jebel Ali and Johannesburg. Currently, HP is the only PC vendor to have a PC assembly facility in the Kingdom, with operations in Riyadh. Acer plans to sell Saudi assembled PCs locally and also leverage Saudi Arabia’s geographical location and strong relationships with other countries to boost exports from the assembly facility.
Initially, Acer will assemble desktop PCs in the Kingdom with the potential to move to laptops and perhaps even LCD monitors. Saudis will play a leading role in Acer’s new operations, but Murthy added that there needs to be an overall balance in sourcing talent to contain costs.
