Vol - Not so fast things aren't bad. it is very specific and the money has not been removed from holday sales it has simply gone elsewhere:-
from CNET a post on the MSFT thread:-
"The changing economic climate was visible at the beginning of the quarter," Kay said. "The stock market is a contributor to this. The Nasdaq is half what it was in March. Considering consumer purchases of PCs are completely discretionary, the economy is a big factor."
Another factor is the saturation of the North American PC market, where second-time buyers tend to avoid the impulse PC purchase and look for better deals, Baker said
"The second-time or more sophisticated buyers want more...RAM, a CD-RW drive and those kinds of things," he said.
Other types of high-end gadgets also tend to draw people away from PCs, which are no longer as exciting by comparison.
"I would phrase it as the cool factor," said NPD Intelect analyst George Meier. "PDAs (personal digital assistants, such as the Palm) are cool. Cell phones are cool."
In fact, while retail PCs sales are way down, sales of notebooks, peripherals and gadgets are way up.
The week of Nov. 5, for example, notebook sales rose 12.8 percent in units and 17.5 percent in dollars over a year earlier, according to PC Data. NPD Intelect had notebook unit sales up 8.44 percent for October.
While notebooks represent less than 25 percent of the combined PC and portable market, the sales increases are significant, Meier said.
"Notebooks even at a higher price are growing at retail," he said. "That portability thing and the cool factor all play into it."
Particularly with a fairly saturated home PC market, analysts see consumers shifting money they might have spent on a new system to other purchases, such as handhelds, peripherals and gadgets.
"If you've got a 500-MHz machine, do you need a 700-MHz machine for doing Excel spreadsheets?" Meier said. "You might instead spend $300, $400 or $500 on a PDA and delay the purchase of the next PC."
Sales of PC-related devices are booming, according to NPD Intelect. From September 1999 to September 2000, sales of flat-panel monitors jumped 463 percent, and PC cameras grew 254 percent. Other strong growth products included digital cameras, up 121 percent; home networking products, up 85 percent; and CD-RW drives, also up 85 percent.
Best regards,
L |
