Lowest Monthly PC Sales Recorded in September
October 23, 2000 (TOKYO) -- The number of PCs sold in September 2000 in Japan decreased by 10.3 percent from August, marking a new low since the year's start.
On the other hand, year-on-year unit-based PC sales increased by 32.2 percent. The accumulated number of PCs sold to September from the beginning of this year increased by 63.8 percent over the same period in the previous year, resulting in a 14.7 percent increase from the 1999 annual total, according to GfK Japan Ltd.
GfK Japan, an information service company, collected POS data of about 3,200 household electrical appliance mass merchandisers. Nikkei Market Access compiles its data every month.
The unit-based sales in September recorded the lowest in this year. It faced a decline of 10.3 percent from August, and went lower than the May level, which had been the record lowest. The unit number of PCs sold in September last year also dropped from that of August with a decline of 6 percent. This year's drop was larger than that of the last year's. It is obvious that consumers wanted to wait for the release of Windows Millennium Edition (Windows ME) for purchase. Even after the release, PCs equipped with Windows ME have not been available from such major makers as NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. Less-than-expected market availability of Windows ME didn't drive sales increase.
The fall in price of the summer PC models equipped with Windows 98 caused the decline of the average PC sales price by 12,266 yen from the previous month to 176,388 yen. Such a big decline has never been recorded since September 1999, when IBM Japan released its super low-priced desktop PC, which caused a 15,000-yen decrease in the average PC price. The sales price of notebook PCs is just above the 200,000 yen mark, and that of desktop PCs marked a record low.
Regarding the unit-based sales accumulated to date since the beginning of this year, the number of PCs sold in August rose above the annual total of 1999, and the sales amount registered in September also exceeded the total value annually attained in 1999, keeping the same pace as the previous year.
(Nikkei Market Access) |
