TOKYO, March 25 (Reuters) - NEC Corp <6701.T> said on Monday
it plans to increase the suggested retail price on its personal
computers due to rising prices of parts such as DRAM chips and
liquid crystal displays.
"We are in a situation where we have to jack up PC prices
from the next new product line," said a spokesman for NEC,
Japan's biggest supplier of personal computers, declining to say
how much the increase would be.
NEC's comment came after U.S. firm Apple Computer Inc
<AAPL.O> last week jacked up the price on its low-end iMac
desktop computer by $100, complaining that prices of components
were going through the roof.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Sunday that NEC's peers
Fujitsu Ltd <6702.T> and IBM Japan Ltd, a unit of International
Business Machines Corp <IBM.N>, also plan to raise their PC
prices by 10 to 20 percent starting in April.
A Fujitsu spokesman told Reuters: "Although parts prices have
been up, we have not decided whether we should raise our PC
prices."
No one at IBM Japan was available for comment.
The newspaper said the weak yen had pushed up procurement
costs in Taiwan, where NEC and Fujitsu manufacture and assemble
their products.
Shares of NEC were down 2.59 percent at 1,130 yen as of 0121
GMT, while Fujitsu was down 3.31 percent at 1,021 yen.
The benchmark Nikkei average <.N225> fell 0.48 percent.
((Eriko Amaha, Tokyo Equities Desk +8 |
