Japan's PC Sales for 1st Week of March Hit This Year's High
March 29, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Japan's personal computer sales for the first week of March hit a record high for this year on both a unit and value basis.
Statistics compiled by Gfk Japan Ltd., an information service company handling point-of-sales (POS) data from 55 volume shops of home electric appliances, show that PC sales at about 2,000 volume shops of home electric appliances for the first week of March (March 1-7) posted a week-on-week increase of 11.3 percent on both the unit and value basis.
Compared with the corresponding week of last year (March 2-8, 1998), the PC sales were 60.3 percent higher on the unit basis, and 61.7 percent higher on the value basis.
The average PC retail price was 230,738 yen, down 22 yen from the previous week's 230,760 yen (118.02 yen = US$1).
Spring PC sales are brisk. The week-on-week growth rate topped 10 percent on both the unit and value basis for two consecutive weeks, in the fourth week of February and the first week of March. The year-on-year increase for the first week of March was the highest this year, higher than the previous high registered in the first week of January.
The average PC retail price remains stable. Although the desk-top type's average retail price declined slightly in the third week of February, it surged 919 yen this week.
In the second week of March, retailers will begin selling new models loaded with Pentium III processors. The average PC retail price, therefore, is likely to stay on the same level for a while.
GfK Japan collects POS data from 55 IT-related retail sales companies centering on high-volume stores specializing in home electric appliances. It covers about 3,200 stores (as of April 1998) throughout Japan.
In cooperation with GfK Japan, Nikkei Market Access provides weekly reports of PC sales in volume and value.
The sales data has been based on the same 41 companies (with about 2,000 stores) since April 1996.
The number of PCs sold at the 2,000 stores is estimated to comprise about 10 percent of gross domestic shipments, and when limiting the sales to retail sales channel, the share comes to about 25 percent of such shipments.
nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com |
