According to DigiTimes, Acer will try shipping its notebook supplies to Europe from China via rail.
DigiTimes says while Acer won't confirm the report, Taiwan-based component makers say 40 containers of Acer notebooks left from its base in Chiongqing City, Western China, to the Europe market via an Asia-Europe railway route.
The international railway route runs more than 11,000 km from Chongqing to Xi'an, Lanzhou and Urumqi in China, Kazakstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland to Duisburg in Germany. Taking about 18-20 days, the railway shipments could replace marine shipments (which take about 30 days from notebook production bases concentrated in eastern and southern China).
Because the rail route crosses regions with different climates, Acer wants to test the varying impact of temperature and humidity on notebooks during shipments.
Acer and HP, say DigiTimes, want to hike shipments of notebooks from Chongqing to 30-40% of global total (and to 55% at the end of 2011). Acer will also produce smartphones and tablets and HP will produce desktops and monitors in Chongqing. The advantage of Western China is not only proximity to Europe but production cost: southern and eastern China started manufacturing first and labor/real estate costs now rise there.
Acer may be mum about the shipment for more reasons than competitive insight. Train shipments in certain parts of Russia have often been hijacked with even a case or two where an entire train disappeared with no evidence.