A clearer wording of what is meant by the downturn in PC sales is given in the article below.
Slowing PC sales actually refers to slowing growth, not an actual downturn in sales.
Part of the explanation given by the PC makers for the slowing growth is that parts are not readily available to make the PCs.
And the hard drive makers (which is one of the parts that go into a PC) are now saying they can't get all the parts they need (chips, whatever) to make the hard drives.
As for supply/demand, the hard drive makers will use the available parts to make the more expensive drives first, where the most profit is.
And the desktop drives, which are the cheaper drives, will get the leftovers.
Regards,
Larry
FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY
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biz.yahoo.com
Monday July 24, 9:53 am Eastern Time
Personal computer shipments' growth slows down - study
NEW YORK, July 24 (Reuters) - Growth in unit shipments of personal computers in the second quarter slowed to half what it was in the same period a year ago, which could signal a cooling off of sales growth in U.S. and European markets, research firm International Data Corp. said in a report released on Monday.
``It's attributed to overall moderation in mature markets like the U.S and Europe,'' said International Data Corp. analyst Bruce Stephen, who said worldwide PC unit shipments grew 14.5 percent year-over-year in the second quarter, compared to 28.7 percent a year ago.
``It's also because we're coming out of some commercial market sluggishness in the U.S.,'' he said, referring to slow sales of computers to businesses around the time of the Year-2000 date changeover, when they were busy updating systems.
Other factors cited by IDC included slow adoption of Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) operating system Windows 2000.
``Corporate America is still slow to adopt Windows 2000 and seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach to upgrading hardware,'' said IDC analyst Gabrielle Griffith.
The U.S. market was well below the worldwide growth rate, with unit shipments expanding only 7.2 percent over the year-ago quarter, IDC said.
Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited.
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