BERLIN (Reuters) - Struggling Taiwanese PC maker Acer Inc is not interested in acquiring the PC business of bigger rival Hewlett-Packard Co, which the U.S. firm is trying to carve out from the group, a senior Acer official said.
HP stunned markets when it announced two weeks ago that it is considering shedding its PC business, part of a wrenching series of moves away from the consumer market that included killing its new tablet.
"As far as I know we don't have any interest," Stefan Engel, the head of Acer's German operations told Reuters in an interview on sidelines of IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.
Last week Acer reported a worse-than-expected quarterly loss, the first in the company's history, as it took charges to reorganise in a troubled first half, and said it would be impossible to break even for the full year.
Acer has been a dominant force in the PC business, particularly in the low-cost notebook segment, but has failed to counter the runaway success of tablets such as Apple's hot-selling iPad that have cut into PC sales and hurt profits.
HP has said selling the PC division to a rival such as Acer, which acquired computer maker Gateway in 2007 or to China's Lenovo Group Ltd, which purchased IBM's PC division in 2004, is not a desirable alternative.
(Reporting By Nadine Schimroszik, Writing by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
