Japan's Notebook PC Sales Rise in Third Week of March
April 9, 2001 (TOKYO) -- Notebook PC sales in the third week of March 2001 increased compared to the same week the previous year.
The number of notebook PCs in units sold showed a mere 3.3 percent decline compared to the fourth week of March 2000, the peak of last year's spring sales, according to GfK Japan Ltd. The peak of this year's spring sales is expected to hit next week.
Desktop PCs went down 10 percent from the previous year's figure.
The PC sales in the third week of March (March 12-18, 2001) increased both in units, by 1.9 percent, and in value, by 1.9 percent, from the previous week. Comparing with the same period last year (March 13-19, 2000), sales increased by 3.5 percent in units, while they decreased by 0.2 percent in value. Consequently, the average PC price declined by 145 yen to 191,816 yen from the previous week's 191,961 yen. (124.18 yen = US$1)
GfK Japan Ltd. is an information service company that deals with POS data collected from 3,200 volume retailers of household electric appliances.
Additionally, due to the home appliances recycling law to be executed in April 2001, sales of specified home appliances like TVs, air conditioners, washing machines and refrigerators, which will require fees of collection and handling for scraping, grew sharply in March. According to GfK Japan, sales of those four items started to increase in the beginning of February 2001, then the sales doubled in some weeks in March from the previous year's sales figures.
Table: PC Sales in the Third Week of March 2001 (GfK Japan survey) Comparison with the same week a year ago (March 13-19, 2000)
Total
Desktop PC
Notebook PC
Week-on-week comparison
Year-before weekly comparison
Week-on-week comparison
Year-before weekly comparison
Week-on-week comparison
Year-before weekly comparison
Volume
+1.9%
+3.5%
+1.5%
-9.8%
+2.3%
+17.8%
Value
+1.9%
-0.2%
+2.4%
-6.2%
+1.5%
+4.5%
Previous report:PC Sales in February Register First Negative Y-O-Y Growth in 3 Years
(Shinya Sakaki, Nikkei Market Access) |
