During IFA 2015, we’ve heard quite a bit about from both Acer and ASUS. While much of this has been on the Windows 10 and Laptop side of things, both Acer and ASUS have their feet wet in the Android world. ASUS focuses more on budget-minded Android tablets, while Acer is pushing affordable smartphones in emerging markets and parts of Europe. The latter surprised us all this past week with the shock announcement of the Predator 6 gaming smartphone, which we’re told will make its proper debut during CES next year. For a little while now, there’s been talk of the two companies merging to form one giant Taiwanese tech giant.
Acer’s CEO Jason Chen has come out and put water over the fire caused by analysts and onlookers, stating that it would simply be impossible. Not only would it be difficult to form a single company out of two that compete fiercely together, it would be against Fair Trade Law in Taiwan as the two of them control around 70% of the local market between them. not to mention that despite the two similar product lines from the both of them, the two cultures from each firm are very different and wouldn’t necessarily work well together.
Talks of mergers like these happen often in the tech world, and while much of it is just speculation it does get us thinking ahead to the future. After all, as smartphones become a big part of ASUS’ business, it seems as though the laptop and PC hardware will be but on the back burner. Over time this could lead to companies like Acer and ASUS focusing more on the mobile side of things, and the need to pool resources to compete with Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE might present itself. Either way, both ASUS and Acer have bright futures ahead of them in the mobile realm, with the ZenFone 2 line and the new Predator 8 tablet starting to turn heads all over the world.