Acer Inc. (/ˈeɪsər/; AY-sər) is a Taiwanese multinational company that produces computer hardware and electronics, headquartered in Xizhi District, New Taipei City, Taiwan.

[6] Acer was founded as Multitech in 1976 by Stan Shih (Chinese: 施振榮), his wife Carolyn Yeh, and five others in Hsinchu City, Taiwan.

In 2001, the company sold its manufacturing units BenQ and Wistron in order to focus resources on design and sales.

Acer increased worldwide sales while simultaneously reducing its labor force by identifying and using marketing strategies that best utilized their existing distribution channels.

[9] In the mid-2000s, consumer notebooks were almost the sole growth drivers for the PC industry, and Acer's exceptionally low overheads and dedication to the channel made it one of the main beneficiaries of this trend.

[10] Acer grew quickly in Europe in part by embracing the use of more traditional distribution channels targeting retail consumers when some rivals were pursuing online sales and business customers.

In 2007, Acer bought Gateway in the United States and Packard Bell in Europe, and became the third-largest provider of computers and the second largest for notebooks, achieving significant improvement in profitability.

Acer has strived to become the world's largest PC vendor in the belief that the goal can help it achieve economy of scale and garner higher margin.

[11] However, such a reliance on the high-volume, low-value PC market made Acer exposed when buying habits changed.

In an effort to diversify from the computer hardware market, a new firm called AcerPure was established to sell home appliances in India.

[46] In November 2012, Acer was ranked 4th place out of 15 in Greenpeace's re-launched Guide to Greener Electronics, with a score of 5.1 points out of 10.

The Guide ranks electronics makers according to their policies and practices to reduce their impact on the climate, produce greener products, and make their operations more sustainable.

Acer also scored well on chemical management for lobbying for restrictions on organo-halogens and was commended for reporting on GHG emissions from its first-tier suppliers and investigating its second tier.

[47] In its 2012 report on progress relating to conflict minerals, the Enough Project rated Acer the seventh highest of 24 consumer electronics companies.