INTEL ANNOUNCES CUTS IN CHIP PRICES 09.18.98
Santa Clara, CA -- As Brooke Crothers reported for CNET News.com, In an
effort to blanket the market with Pentium II technology, Intel announced
price cuts across its line of chips.
"Continued strong acceptance of Pentium II processors enables Intel to
aggressively ramp these products into higher volume price points," the
company said in a statement.
After Intel introduced its "market segmentation" strategy -- which targets
chips for specific markets -- earlier this year, price cuts are occurring on
a monthly basis, an Intel spokesman said.
In other words, prices for chips in different markets are reduced at
varying times, or staggered over the course of the year. This, in general,
results in one chip line being reduced one month and another the following
month.
"Before it was a monolithic market segment...[before] we cut prices every
three months...but now price changes happen at different times," he said.
Intel cuts processor prices
Processor Aug. 98 Price Sept. 98 price % Decrease
400-MHz Pentium II $589 $482 18%
350-MHz PII $423 $299 29%
333-MHz PII $316 $234 26%
300-MHz Celeron $112 $95 15%
266-MHz Mobile PII $444 $391 12%
233-MHz Mobile PII $262 $209 20%
266-MHz Mobile Pentium $241 $159 34%
233-MHz Mobile Pentium $134 $95 29%
Source: Intel
Some of the steepest price cuts announced come in the meatiest part of
Intel's chip lineup. The 400-MHz Pentium II drops from $589 to $482, an 18
percent price decline. The 350-MHz chip was slashed 29 percent from $423 to
$299.
Both the 350 and 400 chips are now used in high-volume products. Compaq
Computer ( compaq.com ), for example, uses the 350-MHz chip in its
Compaq Presario 5170 which sells for $1,599 with a 10GB hard drive and 128MB
of memory.
Also, IBM <http://www.ibm.com>, via resellers, offers an Aptiva consumer
model E5D with a 400-MHz chip and an 8GB hard drive and 64MB of memory for
$1,448 currently.
But new chip pricing could help to drive prices on systems like this down.
Prices for the Pentium II for notebook PCs, meanwhile, were also cut. The
266-MHz version was discounted to $391 from $444. This chip is now appearing
in many midrange and higher-end notebook PCs.
The Celeron processor, also based on the Pentium II architecture, stayed
the same, except for the older, slower 300-MHz version which was cut from
$112 to $95. The improved, faster 300A and 333 Celeron versions did not
change in price.
The venerable Pentium MMX chips, still found in notebook PCs, were also
slashed. The 266-MHz version fell from $241 to $159, a drop of 34 percent.
All in all, the price cuts indicates that pricing is getting increasingly
aggressive. |
