Acer announced on February 16, that the company has signed contracts with China-based IT channel vendor Sunning Appliance for a two year, US$500 million worth sales agreement. Acer chairman JT Wang expects the company's sales through Sunning in 2011 will triple from those a year earlier and Acer will expand its brand name into tier-4 to tier-6 cities with help from Sunning.

Wang also pointed out that the company's revenues from China in 2011 will grow 70% on year to reach US$2.5 billion, raising the region's revenue contribution from only 10% to 13-15%.

Wang also believes that the company's contract with Sunning may have a chance to progress ahead of schedule and the company will also work on strengthening its cooperation with one of the top-tier retailers, Gome.

Hewlett-Packard (HP), which used to be the second-largest notebook brand in China, has already seen its share in China's notebook market drop out of the top-three. Although the company internally estimates that its market share drop in China has already slowed down, since Acer and Asustek are both aggressively expanding their market share's, sources from component makers believe HP will have difficulty in gaining back its lost share.

Although HP internally is not confident about its performance in the Asia Pacific region in the first quarter of 2011 and believes its notebook sales in the region will drop 14-20% on year, the company expects its sales in Latin America will grow 35-45% on year in the first quarter with global sales to grow 7-10% on year.