Once-Hot Acer Returns to Investor Spotlight as Earnings Surge

(Bloomberg) -- Acer Inc. is attracting the interest of stock investors again, after spending years in the doldrums as its share price collapsed along with PC sales.

The Taiwan stock has jumped 34 percent in a blistering five-day rally -- its biggest since 1999 and putting it in first place on MSCI Inc.’s Asian index. The company reported its best quarterly net income since 2010 last week, driven by surging sales of its gaming products, notebooks and Chromebooks, and beating every analyst estimate.

The company, once a PC powerhouse to rival Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard, fell out of favor as demand crumbled with the rise of smartphones. Even after the recent rally, the stock is still down about 80 percent from its 2010 peak. Analysts are now turning more bullish in the wake of their blockbuster earnings, with Fubon Securities Co. and Yuanta Securities Co. raising their recommendations on the stock. Yuanta analyst Calvin Wei said targeting niche products, such as desktop computers designed for gaming, is the right move.

To contact the reporters on this story: Richard Frost in Hong Kong at rfrost4@bloomberg.net, Yu-Huay Sun in Taipei at ysun7@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah McDonald at smcdonald23@bloomberg.net.

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