PC Sales Brisk in Japan in 3rd Week of July
August 16, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Personal computer sales in Japan in the third week of July 1999 increased with the start of the summer vacation season.
They are at the same level observed for the first week of July, when the summer sales campaign by PC shops peaked.
According to figures collected by GfK Japan Ltd., which handles POS data of 55 volume retailers of consumer electric appliances, PC sales at 2,000 shops during the third week of July (July 19-25) increased 2.5 percent in volume and 2.8 percent in value from the previous week.
The figures compared with the same period last year (July 20-26, 1998) show a 82.1 percent increase in number of units sold and a 80.7 percent increase in value.
The average sales price was up 733 yen to 224,986 yen from the previous week's 224,253 yen. (115.19 yen = US$1)
The fact that the summer vacation period started, and a national holiday fell in the middle of the second week of July helped increase sales in both volume and value terms from the previous week.
However, the year-on-year growth that showed double the sales of the same period of 1998 for two consecutive weeks did not continue in the third week of July.
A year ago (the third week of July 1998) when new models with the Windows 98 operating system appeared in stores, sales jumped significantly. This year, growth in units and value did not rise to the year-ago level.
GfK Japan collects POS data from 55 IT-related retail sales companies centering on high-volume stores specializing in home electric appliances. It covers about 3,200 stores (as of April 1998) throughout Japan.
In cooperation with GfK Japan, Nikkei Market Access provides weekly reports of PC sales in volume and value.
The sales data has been based on the same 41 companies (with about 2,000 stores) since April 1996.
The number of PCs sold at the 2,000 stores is estimated to comprise about 10 percent of gross domestic shipments, and when limiting the sales to retail sales channel, the share comes to about 25 percent of such shipments.
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