HOW ABOUT THIS......
Company Press Release
New PC Brand Slashes Dell's Lowest-Priced Desktop Prices by 20% -- Aims At 10% Market Share Within 24 Months
IDC Estimates Indicate a 27% Growth in Worldwide PC Market - 1-World PC's Will Target the Hot Sub-$800 PC Market Segment
MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 19, 1999-- International Data Corporation announced on July 26 that the second quarter year-to-year worldwide PC unit growth reached a whopping 27%, fueled by the lower PC prices. Earlier this month, Dell (Nasdaq:DELL - news) announced its Optiplex® GX 100 PC, the company's lowest-priced desktop PC for corporate and institutional users, starting at $829. Today, Autoco.com (OTC BB:AOOO - news) announced that its Royal Oak Technologies, Inc. subsidiary is going to launch its own sub-$800 computer brand, 1-World.
Royal Oak Technologies, even though still a fairly unknown entity in the PC industry, has a long track record of creating successful brands. In Canada, Royal Oak took AST computers from less than a million dollars in annual retail sales to over $100 million a year by 1997, making AST the number one selling retail computer line in Canada for over 36 months (source: IDC), increasing its market share to 16%. As a comparison, in the second quarter of 1999, PC market leader Compaq (NYSE:CPQ - news) had only 14.6% worldwide market share. Dell was number two with a 10.8% market share.
After disassociating itself from AST, Royal Oak has created all of the necessary strategic relationships to produce inexpensive, high-quality, low-price PC's. It has also conducted extensive market research and performed several test-marketing campaigns. As a result, it is now ready to launch its own brand called 1-World PC. 1-World PC's will be priced very aggressively. Complete PC-packages will start at around $750, thus being positioned in the hot sub-$800 market segment. The computers will be assembled in Canada.
''In order to establish 1-World as a significant player in the PC market, we will now rely on our extensive expertise in creating and marketing major brands. The official launch date will be October 1, and all of our initial marketing activities are aimed at reaching a significant share of year-end and Christmas sales,'' says Alex Romanov, President and CEO of Autoco.com.
''Our marketing approach will be extremely creative, ranging from TV advertising, online promotions and retail channels to establishing very untraditional partnerships. We will share the details of our launch within the next 4-6 weeks,'' added Romanov.
Autoco.com will focus initially on the North American market. Its goal is to reach a 10% market share in Canada within the next 24-36 months, and make 1-World a Top 10 brand in the United States in the same time frame.
''Falling PC prices do not worry us. In fact, the lower the prices go, the higher the PC unit sales growth will be. We believe our production, marketing and distribution costs are significantly lower than 99% of our competitors. This gives us incredible pricing flexibility. When you combine this with the fact that our background is in marketing and branding, not technology, we feel that we have a tremendous competitive edge over established technology-based brand name manufactures. Most of those manufacturers have billions of dollars invested in costly design processes and infrastructure, making them unable to shift their focus to the low-priced market as quickly and effectively as small specialists like us,'' explains Romanov.
About Autoco.com
Autoco.com consists of three operating divisions, Royal Oak Technologies, Inc, GTA Auctions and Liquidations, Inc. and The Motor Pages.
Royal Oak is a national sales and marketing agent representing brand name products in Canada, including Jensen car audio systems, First Smart sensor security products and Koss speakers and multimedia products.
GTA Auctions and Liquidations, Inc. is the largest public automobile and liquidations auction in Ontario, Canada - a region that represents the largest automotive market in Canada. The reputation of the GTA division has created a very loyal public and corporate following, including the Toronto Police Department and a number of well known financial institutions.
The Motor Pages is an Internet-based service, due to be launched within the next few weeks, that will allow potential automobile buyers to research, evaluate and simplify the very stressful exercise of purchasing new or pre-owned vehicles. Its immediate goal is to reach at least a 10% market share among 45,000 dealerships in Toronto, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Buffalo. It plans to accomplish this by providing several value-added services to the dealerships in addition to the information related to numerous Internet inquiries by potential customers. These additional services include dealer-to-dealer networking, which will enable small automobile dealers to have access to the inventories of hundreds or even thousands of other dealers, as well as real-time online inventory management and other Internet related services.
Certain statements in this release are forward-looking. Although Autoco.com believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions within the bounds of its knowledge of its business and operations, there can be no assurance that actual results will not differ materially from its expectations. Autoco.com believes that its primary risk factors include, but are not limited to: the need for substantial financial requirements; the need to develop effective internal processes and systems; the ability to attract and retain high-quality employees; changes in the overall economy; changes in technology; the number and size of competitors in its markets; changes in the law and regulatory policy; and the mix of product and services offered in the company's target markets. Merger Communications (Merger) is a media relations firm employed by Autoco.com. Statements and opinions presented here represent the views of Autoco.com, not Merger, as the release is based on information provided by the Company. Merger and Autoco.com believe that all information in this release has been obtained from sources considered reliable, but cannot guarantee that the statements presented herein are accurate or complete. Merger's compensation for its media relations services consists of a fee and stock. Merger and its employees can have a position in the securities of the companies in which it distributes information for media use, and may be buying or selling securities in the course of its regular business.
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