Notebook vendor Acer aims to ship at least five million smartphones in 2015 and plans to hike the shipments to 10 million units in 2016. But Acer will not spend a lot of money for just ramping up its market share. Instead, Acer will develop models with innovative specifications for specific market segments, according to ST Liu, president of Acer's handset unit.

For example, Acer unveiled a number of new smartphones at the recently concluded IFA2015, including the Predator 6 gaming handset and the Jade Primo PC handset, noted Liu, as he explained the company's smartphone strategy during a recent interview with Digitimes.

Q: What is your shipment target for smartphones in 2015 and what are the prospects for 2016?

A: It will be more realistic to set our smartphone shipment target for 2015 at five million units, which is also my low-end target. But since the smartphone market has become a fierce battlefield, Acer is unlikely to roll out a bunch of products at losses. We may ship five million smartphones a year with a positive gross margin, but we need to ship at least 10 million units to generate profits, and so that is the target for us in 2016.

Q: How are you going to double your shipments to 10 million units in 2016?

A: We are going to step into a number of new markets, which will include India and at least two to three markets in South America. We have begun marketing our products in Chile, and Brazil will probably be the next one. Meanwhile, we also plan to undergo a fact-finding tour to India in October.

We also plan to make an inroad into the China market in 2016, but we will target mainly some niche segments instead of looking at ramping our market share. We will look to the possibility of cooperation with local telecom operators in China.

Q: Since a number of handset brands have already penetrated into the India market, what are your plans?

A: While most brand vendors have been promoting smartphones optimizing the price/performance of their devices to ramp up sales in India, Acer plans to promote its smartphones through e-commerce channels initially. We have been in talks with India's e-commerce operator Snapdeal as well as other operators.

Additionally, we have already established a PC assembly plant in India, which can be expanded to include handset production lines. We aim to produce handsets locally in India in order to solve issues related to import tariffs.

Q: What are your plans and strategies for other markets?

A: We are scheduled to unveil plans to promote our smartphones in Japan in cooperation with a local e-commerce operator beginning in the fourth quarter of 2015. Initially, we will focus on promoting our Jade-series models in Japan paired with specially designated software products

In Indonesia, we plan to sign a cooperation pact with a local EMS firm soon in order to produce smartphones locally. Currently, Acer is one of the top-10 vendors in Indonesia, distributing our products mainly through retail channels.

Q: As you have just mentioned that the smartphone market is a fierce battlefield, what are your strategies to deal with the phenomenon?

A: Currently, a majority of our models are priced below US$199. But we have also been trying to ramp up the ASP of our products by introducing flagship models priced over US$300 per year. We launched the flagship Jade Primo in 2015 and plan to release two flagships, the Predator 6 and the Jade Primo 2 in 2016.

The Jade Primo supports Windows 10 continuum operating as a PC handset. It also features a 5.5-inch AMOLED 1080p display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, a 21-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.

The Predator 6 is designed as a gaming smartphone and will come with a 6-inch display and a MediaTek 10-core Helio X20 CPU, supporting four speakers.

We will continue to commit capital for product development to enable consumers to better understand the quality and value of our smartphones. But we definitely will not roll out models priced up to US$600-700.