During the Asia Pacific Predator League 2024, Acer held a press conference sharing insights about their market in Asia as well as statistics and plans regarding the Predator League esports events.

As many may know, Acer is a hardware and electronics company primarily known for its desktop PCs and laptops. During the press conference, Acer provided some insights into its market share and highlighted various achievements.

This includes their laptop notebooks ranking as the #1 choice in the Phillippines consecutively for more than 17 years in 2023. Meanwhile, both its desktop PCs and gaming laptops are the #2 top seller in Malaysia, while desktop sales ranked #1 in Singapore, Thailand, and the Phillippines.

Besides Malaysia, Acer gaming laptops are also popular in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. Acer also noted that its gaming laptops are the #1 choice in the Phillippines and #2 choice in Thailand. As for Acer’s thin and lightweight laptops, they are the first choice in Taiwan, followed by Singapore, the Phillippines, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Predator League 2025 Malaysia

Moving away from the sales and market side of things, Mr. Kon Tek Yoong, Managing Director for Acer Malaysia, shares more about the Predator League esports events and its statistics.

It was noted that ever since becoming the champion of the Predator League in Jakarta, Acer Malaysia has been supporting the league as its commitment to the gaming industry of Malaysia. The Malaysia Qualifier LAN Finals of last year, which was held in collaboration with Noizucon at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, had over 102 teams participating, and more than 10,000 audiences attended, with 230,000 people tuned in to watch the matches via online livestream. Moving forward, Acer said it aims to empower more local gaming products and marketing events.

In the same press conference, Acer also announced that the Asia Pacific Predator League 2025 Grand Finals have been decided and will be hosted in Malaysia. In terms of reasons behind the location choice, it was not because of personal preferences but rather decided through voting.

“If a country wants to host, it can present its proposal during the leaders’ meeting. They present their plans, details, and ideas, and then the other countries will vote. And that is how Malaysia was chosen to host Predator League 2025.”

Game Choices 

Valorant and Dota 2 were the games for this year’s Asia Pacific Predator League tournaments, and they are not the only titles with a prominent esports scene. The choice of which games get tournaments for Predator League is a common discussion topic, but Acer mentioned that different regions will have different game preferences.

“When choosing a game for Predator League, the respective country will do research among its gaming community to see and understand which game is more popular or trending at the moment. If you host a tournament with a game that no one wants to join, it is pointless.”

Aside from researching details on the currently popular games, the Acer committees will also vote on the games. Not only that, they also mentioned that the number of games is also crucial. For example, 3 titles may be too diverse and can be hard to focus on, while only one will feel too little. As such, 2 games strike a perfect balance between.

Going Global

As the title of the event may suggest, the Asia Pacific Predator League has only been organized in Asia Pacific countries and there are reasons for it. In regards to plans to go internationally, Acer noted that there are no plans yet as there are many difficulties.

For one, as mentioned previously, each region has a different preference for games, so the selection process becomes more complicated and difficult. Another reason is that transportation will be another complicated task, especially for flying the press and the teams overseas.

Sustainable Components in Products

Aside from Predator League, another topic brought up was the plans on whether Acer would incorporate sustainable components into its gaming products such as laptops, desktops, and monitors.

To answer that, Acer notes the decisions are not set in stone yet, saying “We are not sure if we can do that. When thinking about where our products are heading, with say, Acer Vero, we have a better version of it and it also won a lot of design awards.”

“For gaming products, we have many different kinds of specs, so we are not sure if recycled materials can be used. Although it is still our direction to utilize more recycled materials to produce our amazing products.”