PC Sales Brisk in 2nd Week of Nov.; Some Shortages Seen
December 7, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Sales of personal computers in Japan in the second week of November increased about 60 percent from the same week a year earlier.
However, a week-on-week comparison showed negative growth in both units and value due to some shortages of popular models.
According to a survey by GfK Japan Ltd., an information service company dealing with point-of-sales data from retailers of household appliances, PC sales in the second week of November (Nov. 9 to 15) at about 2,000 retail stores decreased by 7.5 percent compared to the previous week in terms of units and fell 6.1 percent in value (See table).
A comparison with the same week in 1997 (November 10 through 16, 1997), shows a 59.9 percent increase in units and a 60.0 percent increase on a value basis.
A similar situation, in which sales decreased from the previous week because of shortages of popular models, was observed in early December of last year, after new models were introduced.
In this year's winter sales, desktops with LCD monitors are among the most popular.
For that reason, the week-on-week growth of desktops for three consecutive weeks has been outpacing that of notebooks (since the fourth week of October). In the second week of November, desktops and notebooks were almost equal in terms of the number of units sold.
Desktop PCs with LCD monitors and high-end notebooks are popular, which pushed up the average retail price for three straight weeks. The average retail price of both desktop and notebook PCs combined increased to 233,643 yen (US$1,930) from 230,139 yen (US$1,900).
The data GfK Japan releases are from about 2,000 outlets of 41 firms. GfK Japan picked the 41 firms in 1996 and has been releasing their data since then.
GfK Japan covers a far greater number of outlets with combined unit-based sales accounting for about 10 percent of total domestic PC shipments and about 25 percent of total retail
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