Japan's PC Sales Increase Both in Units, Value for Three Weeks Running
June 26, 2000 (TOKYO) -- PC sales in large retail stores in the first week of June exceeded those in the previous week both in units and value.
The sales have grown week to week for the third week in a row.
While the total increased only by about 3 percent from the week before, the total sales far exceeded that in the same week in the previous year (May 31 - June 6, 1999) both in number of units and value.
According to the tabulations made by Gfk Japan Ltd., which handles POS data for 3,200 large electric appliance stores in Japan, PC sales during the first week of June 2000 (May 29-June 4, 2000) rose 3.0 percent in units and 3.4 percent in value from the previous week. Compared with the same week of the previous year, PC sales increased by 75.8 percent in units and by 59.7 percent in value. The average retail sales price increased by 818 yen from 200,049 yen to 200,867 yen. (104.25 yen = US$1)
Sony Corp. launched new "Vaio" desktop models. They are new models for the low-priced "J series" and space-saving "L series."
The new J series model "J11" is a successor to "J10" which was a hit product during the spring season. The retail store price is low around 130,000 yen, and many orders were received at the same time upon the new release. Following the strong performance of the new notebook PC last week, VAIO again served to achieve increased sales in the first week of June.
GfK Japan collects POS data from 42 IT-related store chains centering on high-volume stores specializing in home electric appliances. It covers about 3,200 stores (as of October 1999) 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 store chains (with about 2,000 outlets) since April 1996.
The number of PCs sold at the 2,000 outlets is estimated to comprise about 10 percent of gross domestic shipments, and to form a 25 percent share in the retail sales channel market. |
