Japan's Winter PC Sales Expected to Post Record High
December 13, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Personal computer sales in Japan in the third week of November increased both in units and value compared with the previous week, following the trend in past years as the year-end shopping season nears.
Sales in the third week of November recorded an increase of more than 50 percent over the same period last year, although the figure did not reach the level of the first week of November, which was close to the peaks of the 1998 winter season and 1999 summer season. Sales after late November are expected to increase further when company employees receive their winter bonus.
PC sales in the third week of November (Nov. 15-21, 1999) at approximately 2,000 volume retailers increased by 6.3 percent in units and 6.0 percent in value compared with the previous week, according to GfK Japan Ltd.
GfK Japan is an information service company dealing with POS data of 55 household electric appliance retail stores.
Compared with the same week the previous year (Nov. 16-22, 1998), units rose by 55.7 percent and value by 37.0 percent.
The average retail price dropped by 712 yen to 203,220 yen from 203,932 yen a week earlier. (103.19 yen = US$1)
Japan's PC retail market for this winter sales season has expanded product lines. low-priced desktop models joined the line-up of A4 notebook PCs which aroused demand in 1998, along with desktop PCs with LCD monitors. PC sales will surely surpass the past record for the peak period because they are 1.5 times higher than the previous year's period leading into the winter sales season.
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 the retail sales channel, the share comes to about 25 percent of such shipments.
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