Michele Montecchio, General Manager, Acer Middle East shares insights on Acer’s LEAP 2025 Debut and their focus across KSA & Middle East region.
Please tell us about your recent participation at LEAP 2025, what was on showcase and the highlights?
Our first time participating in LEAP marks an important milestone for us and is a proud achievement. With this year’s theme being “Into New Worlds”, that’s exactly what we wanted to do by highlighting our commitment to strengthening our presence as leaders in the industry, not only in Saudi Arabia, but the region.
LEAP 2025 was the perfect opportunity for Acer Middle East to emphasize and communicate our renewed commercial business strategy within the region. We did this by exhibiting the 4 different pillars of our business.
First, in Education we showcased our top-notch devices including our range of Chromebooks, that are designed for schools and students as cost-effective, cloud-enabled, and durable. Second, we highlighted our Small Medium Businesses lineup through our latest devices and ranges such as the TravelMate laptops with advanced security and productivity features and desktop monitors, such as the B278 monitor, with its sharp display and the X1328 projector, an ideal top-quality solution for business presentations. Third we showcased the new server and storage solutions by Altos which feature powerful devices and systems created for high-performance computing operations and heavy workloads. And last but not least we showcased our ever advancing Gaming devices, highlighting our leadership in gaming technology and innovation with products such as the Predator Helios 18 and the Predator Triton Neo and Predator Orion 7000 Desktop; all designed to handle demanding gaming applications, increasingly important in the Saudi Arabian market.
Can you talk about growth and achievements Acer has had in the Middle East in recent years?
Acer has been present in the Middle East for over 30 years and has witnessed the incredible development, advancement and achievements that have occurred in the last few decades.
The post-pandemic period gave us the opportunity to expand in new areas and reinforce our presence where we’ve always been strong. Over the years we’ve become known for our excellence and pioneering innovations in technology, especially in the consumer and retail business on both classical portable computers, desktops and monitors as well as in gaming systems. However, Acers’ commercial presence is under a process of expansion, gravitating around our strongest vertical which is education and expanding into government and corporates businesses. It’s very exciting.
KSA is transforming at a rapid pace and investing across industries, what opportunities do you see in the region and how are you supporting this transformation?
That is true, Saudi Arabia is developing at a rapid rate. We see a fairground of exciting opportunities in business and tech. Acer, being present at LEAP in Riyadh was a must for us. With continuous and consistent, development in our business relationships in Saudi Arabia, it becomes a mutually beneficial relationship. We are working on increasing Acer’s presence in the Kingdom by investing and collaborating, participating and always being present. We are actively engaging with both corporate and government partners to help contribute to the country’s business growth and we’re working on this by focusing on clients through vertical solutions and AI centric systems in both Chrome and Windows platforms.
Can you talk about some of the latest innovations and launches by Acer in the past year?
In the tech industry a lot can happen in a year, I must say! Let me share with you the most important innovations and launches..
On the consumer side, I’d have to mention the Aspire Vero 16 laptop. This device was built with a commitment to carbon neutrality throughout its lifecycle and features a chassis of which more than 70% is made from a blend of post-consumer recycled plastic and bio-based oyster shell material! And to add to that, it’s made with an easy-to-repair design. It’s also been named a CES Innovation Award Honoree for 2025!
And then I also want to mention the amazing Copilot+PC line introduced this year to our portfolio. Of which are the Swift 14 AI that combines the new AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series processors and the Swift Go 14 AI that delivers exceptional responsiveness and multi-day battery life, powered by a Snapdragon X Plus 8-core processor. These PCs combine the perfect balance of lightweight versatile designs, powerful performance and AI technology, whereby the user is empowered to be more efficient and achieve more.
On the other hand, our Nitro Blaze 8 and Nitro Blaze 11 devices from our handheld gaming portfolio are amazing gaming devices! With rapid gameplay and responsiveness, immersive visuals, with powerful top-notch processors allowing top quality on-the-go gaming. Also, in gaming we launched the New Predator Helios Neo AI gaming laptops with Next-Gen processors and GPUs and also the gaming laptop concept with detachable controllers; Project Dual Play!
When it comes to Education, we launched the New ultra-durable TravelMate laptops plus a variety of Chromebook laptops and a tablet which all come with a range of options, such as 4G LTE, touch displays, premium webcams, magnetic keyboard and military-grade durability casing especially for student use. It’s been a productive 12 months for Acer!
What trends can we watch out for in the PC market in 2025 and beyond?
I believe there will be many different trends which will sustain the global growth of the industry this year. The biggest one to look out for is AI! We’ve only touched the surface of AI and this will encourage both organizations and individuals to embrace the new technology that is enabling generative AI and more efficient ways to compute processes which will make work activities more efficient. Windows 10 EOL will also encourage a refresh of older devices in both private and public sectors. Another segment that will see a wave of change and innovation due to AI is gaming. Gaming indeed will be taken over by the tech refresh wave which will be especially driven by the new graphics cards performances.
