Acer narrowly meets second quarter market expectations

Acer made second quarter market expectations by the skin of its teeth. The world's third largest PC maker witnessed quickly declining profit margins in the netbook segment. While the company isn't swimming in revenue, it fared better than competitors Dell and Lenovo which are more reliant on enterprise demand.

Acer's net profit sank to 2.3 billion New Taiwan dollars (about $69.7 million) in the quarter ending June, from NT$2.9 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts expected an average net profit of NT$2.34 billion for the quarter. Revenue slipped 5% to NT$119 billion (some $3.6 billion). Acer moved more units than the world's five top PC makers, though, with shipments up almost 24% from last year.

Things may be looking up for Acer's netbook operation. Research firm IDC foresees netbook shipments to soar by 127% this year, in a steady overall PC market. Additionally, Microsoft is pushing to release Windows 7 on October 22, and that has the potential to boost PC shipments.