Acer Posts Q2 Loss

Maybe Hewlett-Packard has it right and there is no money to be made in the PC business.

Acer today posted its first-ever quarterly loss and company chairman J.T. Wang said there is no way the firm will post a profit this year as previously announced.

The reported second-quarter net loss was $6.8 billion in New Taiwanese dollars, or $234 million in U.S. dollars — about three times larger than analysts expected. Sales for the quarter were $102.1 billion New Taiwanese dollars.

Wang blamed the ongoing worldwide recession for the poor numbers. He also downplayed the impact tablet PCs were having on the market, claiming laptop popularity was on the rise.

“The fever for tablets is going down, and the notebook is regaining the interest of the consumer,” Wang said in a Bloomberg news story. “New laptops, called Ultrabooks, that are lighter, thinner and turn on instantly will boost sales from the fourth quarter.”

The company also announced it was cutting 300 jobs and taking a $150 million write-down due to inventory problems.