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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (138069)	7/29/1999 6:10:00 PM
From: KS	Respond to of 176387

July 29, 1999 17:55 INTERVIEW-Europe Q2 PC sales rise 22 pct,Dell gains By Neal Boudette, European Telecommunications Correspondent FRANKFURT, July 29 (Reuters) - European PC sales grew 21.7 percent in the second quarter as small and mid-sized businesses bought machines in preparation for Y2K, offsetting weaker consumer demand, researcher Context said on Thursday. U.S. personal computer makers Dell Computer Corp , IBM Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co all outpaced the market and notched increases in market share. Compaq Computer Corp , the world's largest PC maker, remained Europe's market share leader, although it grew slightly slower than the market and lost the lead to rival Dell in Britain, Context said. "Dell is Compaq's strongest competitor and they are taking share away from Compaq," Marie-Christine Pygott, senior Context analyst, told Reuters. "This is a historic event that Dell has now taken the top position from Compaq in the UK." Separately on Thursday, Compaq said it would cut 800 to 1,000 jobs in Europe as part of a global restructuring following a second quarter loss of $184 million. Europe was one of Compaq's main troublespots as revenue grew only six percent. Despite the market's growth, all vendors were hit by falling prices and a weak euro, factors that are limiting revenue and profit gains. As consumer demand eased, small and medium-sized businesses bought PCs at an increased rate as they began scrambling to prepare for the millennium changeover, Pygott said. "We expect to see this demand increase in Europe in the next quarters, with more and more (small businesses) preparing for Y2K," she said. Older computers stored the date by using two digits to denote the year. Some computers may read "00" as 1900 instead of 2000 or could simply crash. Compaq's European market share slipped two points to 18.1 percent, while Dell climbed more than a point to 10.3 percent. IBM gained almost two points to 9.8 percent and H-P gained a point to 7.6 percent. Siemens AG was fifth with a share of 6.7 percent, up a half a point. In the UK, Compaq saw PC shipments rise 3.4 percent, far slower than the UK market growth rate of 21 percent. Dell leaped ahead of its rival by posting UK sales growth of 43 percent. Dell, which sells PCs directly to customers over the Internet or via telephone, nearly doubled sales in France, Finland and Denmark. Sales in Germany, typically a tough market for the company, rose 29 percent. IBM's European unit sales increased 48 percent on strong performances in France and Britain, and a weak comparative second quarter from 1998, Context said. HP also had a weak comparative quarter. Its unit sales rose 46 percent. A sales gain of 31.6 percent across Europe enabled Siemens to join the top five vendors despite a 19 percent drop in UK sales. Siemens will move even further up into the top group after its merges its European PC business with the Number Six vendor, Fujitsu Ltd . Together they had second quarter market share of 11.7 percent, which would put them second behind Compaq. But Pygott remained cautious about the outlook for the combination since both get a large percentage of their sales from Germany. "The aim of the merger is to increase global PC sales, but it won't improve the situation much in other European countries," she said. "They will get bigger market share but the main increase is in Germany." The merger is due to take effect October 1