Intel <INTC.O> pegs hopes on Pentium 3 in China
By Matt Pottinger
BEIJING, March 8 (Reuters) - Intel Corp is betting China's
rush to embrace the Internet will fuel demand for its new
Pentium 3 microprocessors, company executives said on Monday.
Personal computers with the Pentium 3 chip went on sale in
China on February 26 as part of a global launch.
"We now have the Internet in mind with every product we
design," Intel senior vice president Albert Yu told reporters
at a demonstration for Chinese computer company executives.
Internet use in China was "going to explode" over the next
two years, he said. "I think the demand for the chip is going
to be there."
But some in the audience at the demonstration were
sceptical of the need for such powerful computing power in
China.
"The biggest problem in China is with the
telecommunications system," said Pu Kang, a finance official at
a Sino-Japanese joint venture, referring to China's relatively
high Internet access fees and jam-packed networks.
Quoting the Chinese proverb that describes excessive
measures, she said using the new Pentium chip would be like
"using an ox cleaver to kill a chicken."
E-commerce is still in its infancy in China, in part
because the country still lacks the financial infrastructure,
such as a developed credit system.
Yu brushed aside such concerns, citing expansion of China's
telecommunications infrastructure and Beijing's decision last
week to slash Internet access fees by 50 percent to four yuan
(48 cents) an hour.
Personal computers sporting the Pentium 3 chip sell in
China for between 13,000 and 20,000 yuan ($1,570-$2,415). A
decent monthly salary in Beijing would be 800-1,000 yuan.
China had 2.1 million Internet users at the end of 1998,
according to official figures. Some analysts predict the number
could soar to 10 million by the end of 2001.
Chinese bought about four million personal computers in
1998, and would probably buy around five million in 1999,
according to a Beijing-based analyst with International Data
Corporation.
Intel's president for China, Jim Jarrett, said he expected
the country's appetite for state-of-the art chips to keep pace
with the rest of the world's.
"If past is precedent, absolutely. The Pentium 2 sold very,
very well in China, and we would expect the same thing to occur
with the Pentium 3," Jarrett said.
($1.0 = 8.28 yuan)
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-- E-mail: beijing.newsroom@reuters.com
REUTERS
Rtr 05:22 03-08-99 |
