All, I wonder if CPQ's problem in retail has something to do with using K6....
Industry News
Compaq PC Shortages Due to
Delays, Not RadioShack Deal
By Roger C. Lanctot
New York
5:30 p.m. EST Fri., Feb. 27, 1998
That sucking sound that retailers are hearing coming from
Houston is not the sound of PC merchandise being soaked
up by RadioShack, says Michael Larson, vice president of
sales and marketing for Compaq's consumer division: It is
the sound of market share being gobbled up as Compaq's
consumer division has its biggest January ever.
Retailers have been complaining for weeks about an
inability to get sufficient Compaq PC inventory, and some
were outraged at the signing of the exclusive deal with
RadioShack in January, in the midst of the product
shortfall. Near the end of January Compaq inked a pact to
be the sole supplier of PCs to RadioShack's more than
6,000 company-owned and franchised stores, displacing
IBM.
"We have not shipped RadioShack one stick of product,"
Larson said today. "We planned 100 percent of the
RadioShack business as incremental to the business we
have developed with our base of existing accounts."
Larson said that Compaq product would be in place in
RadioShack stores by the end of March, confirming
statements made by Tandy executives in a company
conference call with Wall Street analysts. Larson said that
product delays, coupled with a dramatic increase in
sell-through, were contributing to the current shortage of
product in the retail channel. "Our first half ramp has not
gone as smoothly as we would have liked," he said.
"There's no question a number of our products have been
delayed. We are selling at an extremely higher rate than
we did last year."
Compaq's units sales increased 90.7 percent in January,
relative to January 1997, and revenue was up 27.4
percent, according to audited retail sales data from PC
Data, Reston, Va. |
