“Become Asia’s biggest production center for laptops.” This is the ambition of the authorities of the city of Chongqing (重庆) in Southwestern China. Some 2000 kilometers away from the sea, Chongqing is located at the confluence of Jialing River (嘉陵江) and Yangtze River (长江). Its situation next to these fluvial roads has made out of Chongqing an industrial city and an attraction pole for workers from neighbouring provinces.

Important industrial activities in Chongqing are car and motorbike factories, chemical industry and heavy industry (steel, aluminum). Furthermore, the region is rich in natural resources like natural gas and the service sector is rapidly expanding. But now a new activity is planned to multiply the city’s industrial capacity.

This is not wishful thinking. In 2009 the city of Chongqing signed a deal with HP. The US company is to build a production base in Chongqing and move its accounting centre for Asia to the city. Hp’s commitment to Chongqing has pulled big Taiwanese OEMs like Foxconn (富士康) and Inventec (英业达) to build production plants in the city. If everything goes as planned, the computer industry should replace the car and motorbike industry as the city’s biggest industrial activity in 2012. Other computer brands and OEMs are said to be moving to Chongqing as well.

There are both political and economical reasons that explain why Chongqing is now attracting these kinds of high tech investments:

• It was always (since 1978) the authorities’ intention to first develop the coastal regions; but then let the investments go westwards. Under the Western Big Development (西部大开发 ),established in 2000, and other policies, Western regions can offer lower taxes than coastal regions.
• Since 1997, the city of Chongqing and the surrounding countryside have been separated from Sichuan province and given the status of a provincial level municipality. Before 1997, Chongqing was a busy, but rather poor industrial town. Since 1997, the city’s government has the power and means of a province to plan the development of the city.
• This has let to major improvements in logistics and infrastructure. Chongqing is now connected to the rest of China and the world by a growing network of high speed roads, railways and a state of the art international airport. All these have taken over from the fluvial roads and seriously reduced the time between Chongqing and other big industrial hubs.
• The nearby Three Gorges Dam (三峡工程) ensures the regions future electricity supply.
• Chongqing is going through a massive urbanization phenomenon, where people from all kinds of places are attracted to the booming city. While this is not an easy thing to manage for the authorities, it also gives them the opportunity to plan the future of a city that has an urban population of more than 5’000’000. Most of the new computer industry will be located in Xiyongpark (西永微电子产业园区), in the new Western parts of the city. The park was specially built to attract the computer industry and meet all its needs.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the Chinese government and many institutions were transferred to Chongqing, and for a while Communists and Nationalists stopped fighting each other and fought together against their common enemy. The buildings of the US legation are among the buildings from that time. that are still standing.

Chinese sources: 重庆筹划建立“亚洲最大笔记本电脑基地”; 惠普富士康两大产业基地落户重庆 再造1/3个重庆工业

Acer’s (宏碁) prospects for the near future look rather rosy. In 2009, the Taiwanese company came third in units shipped worldwide for the whole year. It is successfully surfing on the cheap laptops wave, which boosted shipments in the last quarter of 2009. To emphasize its position as a global brand, Acer signed into the Olympic partnership program (TOP)  for Vancouver 2010 and London 2012. It is taking over from Lenovo (联想), which was the computer manufacturing TOP partner for Torino 2006 and Beijing 2008.

But there is one market, where Acer could do better: China. So far Acer has failed to be among the top three in China (something it has achieved in the US and worldwide).  Simply put, Acer isn’t well known as a brand in China. According to zol.com.cn’s brand awareness index, these were the most popular computer brands in China in 2009:

• laptops:                1. Lenovo 2. HP 3. Asus (华硕)
• Desktops:             1. Lenovo 2. HP 3. Dell
• Netbooks:            1. Lenovo 2. Asus 3. Hasee (神舟)
• All-in-One PCs:  1. Lenovo 2. Apple 3. Hasee

To improve its image in China, Acer planned a big publicity campaign. The company’s announcement, that it signed a partnership with the Chinese Olympic delegation for the 2010 winter games is a key part in this strategy. In Parallel to its global partnership with the Vancouver games, Acer will present itself in China as a partner of the Chinese athletes. No doubt this will get noticed.

Besides a financial agreement, Acer will supply the almost 200 members of the Chinese delegation with mobile phones and computer equipment and assistance. During the Chinese New Year festivities (mid February), Acer will start promoting this partnership through ads in printed media, online media and TV.

Lenovo being a pioneer of the Chinese computer industry and having a very good knowledge of the Chinese market, clearly is the strongest brand in China. But teaming up with the Olympic delegation is bound to attract some eyeballs.

Chinese sources: 宏碁Q4全球销量超戴尔 联想仍在三甲之外; 宏碁与冬奥会中国代表团签约 发力大陆品牌推广