Japan's PC Sales in 3rd Week of April Rise Sharply
May 17, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Japan's PC sales in the third week of April increased by 74.1 percent in units and 75.3 percent in value on a year-on-year basis (or as compared with April 20-26, 1998).
According to data collected by GfK Japan Ltd., Japan's PC sales at about 2,000 mass-volume retail shops in the third week of April (April 19-25, 1999) rose 8.3 percent over the previous week in number of units, and increased 6.2 percent in value.
The average sales price per unit declined 4,570 yen from the preceding week's figure of 232,090 yen to 227,520 yen. (121.42 yen = US$1)
The average sales price of desktop PCs, which had been fairly stable, declined by 5,220 yen in the third week of April.
The main causes for this decline in price were: (1) prices of spring season models began to fall before the start of sales campaigns planned for the long "Golden Week" holiday period (April 29-May 5); and (2) a move away from Pentium II microprocessor-based PCs and toward Pentium III units or high-speed Celeron chips, causing the unit prices of Pentium II type PCs to decline.
The price decline is expected to accelerate in the fourth week of April, and the average retail prices of PCs are likely to fall below the average retail prices for the previous year as early as the period of the Golden Week holidays.
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.
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