Acer Chairman and CEO, J.T. Wang has resigned after the company made an operating loss of over $86 million for Q3, JT Wang’s resignation comes just hours after BlackBerry’s CEO Thorsten Heins was asked to step down.
Though Wang shall remain in chairmanship until the end of his tenure next June, he quits his CEO January 1, 2014 and will be replaced by Corporate President Jim Wong.
Acer had a Consolidated Revenue of US$3.11B, up 3.1% quarter-over-quarter and down 11.8% year-over-year; an Operating Loss of $86.61M and a due to a non-cash related intangible asset impairment of $335.12 million the firm had a profit after tax of $-442.19 million in its Q3.
Though not entirely Wang’s fault, Acer’s Q3’s operating loss has been said t be due to the gross margin impact of gearing up for the Windows 8.1 sell in and the related management of inventory plus a one time compensation payments related to the long standing eMachines consumers litigation.
With high hopes after brand strategy adjustment, Acer expects its shipments to decrease by 10% but have a high gross margin in Q4.
According to the firm’s statement Wang said, “Acer encountered many complicated and harsh challenges in the past few years. With the consecutive poor financial results, it is time for me to hand over the responsibility to a new leadership team to path the way for a new era.”
J.T. Wang took over office brilliantly as the firm’s Chairman and CEO in 2005 and was ranked as number 2 among 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine. He had joined the firm in 1981 when still a sales engineer, then rose to be the firm’s president of Taiwan’s sales and marketing division in 1990. In 2000, he was named president of Acer Inc. and in 2005, he took over as chairman and CEO of the corporation. But shit happens.
Apart from Wang’s resignation, Acer is set to reduce manpower, launch affordable or low-end priced devices to increase its marketshare and check its product plan termination with related product tooling and legal fees, resulting in a one-time cost of US$150M which is expected to be reported in the Q4’13 financial results. The firm will cut its worldwide employees by 7% resulting in OPEX savings of US$100M annually from 2014.
