RESEARCH ALERT-Chase H&Q says PC industry healthy
NEW YORK, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Chase H&Q said on Friday that the personal computer industry is on track for 15-17 percent unit growth year over year, indicating ``that PC demand is healthy, but not red hot.''
-- Chase's analysis of PC demand in the European market differs from comments made on Thursday by Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news) whose revenue warning shook the industry.
-- ``Europe has begun to show improvement,'' especially in the corporate market, analyst Walter Winnitzki said in a research note. ``We would therefore be buyers in the PC sector.'' He noted that the Chase's ``strongest picks'' are Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE:CPQ - news), which is rated a ``strong buy,'' followed by Dell Computer Corp. (NasdaqNM:DELL - news) and Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW - news), both rated ``buy.''
-- While Winnitzki does not believe this will be a cause for upside in the third quarter, he said it could be more meaningful in the fourth quarter if trends continue. Shares of Intel tumbled $13-31/64 to $48 in Friday morning Nasdaq trading.
-- ``While Intel had been talking about strong demand, most vendors were coming up short in making sales projections,'' Winnitzki said. ``We also point out that European demand has already been soft for the last 2-3 quarters and corporate demand was already down from the prior year. Thus we believe Intel is no longer a good coincident indicator of trends for the PC vendors.'' |
