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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (81616)	12/1/1999 11:20:00 AM
From: Scot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572719

Jim, Here's the whole thing: news.cnet.com Retail PC sales slowing despite price cuts By Reuters Special to CNET News.com November 29, 1999, 6:40 p.m. PT Retail shipments of personal computers rose 21 percent in October from a year earlier, one of the smallest increases this year as retailers offered fewer promotions, a research firm said. Revenue fell 9.7 percent for the month as the average price for PCs sold dropped to $800, down 25 percent from October 1998, according to PC Data of Reston, Virginia. "It was a slow month," PC Data analyst Stephen Baker said. "Some of the sales that normally would have happened in October were pulled into September by all the promotions." Quote Snapshot The higher retail shipments combined with lower revenue and prices fit a pattern that has persisted for most of the year, as PC makers churn out more machines that sell for less than $1,000. That helped push startup Emachines into the third spot for PCs sold through retailers. The company's PCs accounted for 12.4 percent of October's sales, and its eTower model was the second-best selling PC during the month. The biggest increase came from industry-leading PC maker Compaq Computer, which saw its October retail sales rise 60 percent from the same month last year, PC Data said. "That's their best showing in a long time,' Baker said. Compaq sold 41 percent of all PCs marketed through retailers in October. The company's Presario line accounted for three out of five of the month's best-selling models. Even as Hewlett-Packard and other PC makers warned that sales and profits could be hurt by a shortage of components, Baker said he saw no signs that supply or prices were affected in October. Hewlett-Packard had the second spot in retail sales for the month, while Apple Computer was fourth. IBM was fifth for the month. The company's retail sales fell 43 percent in October because it doesn't have an inexpensive machine to compete with rebates and low-cost models from rivals. IBM, the world's largest computer maker, said last month it will drop most major U.S. brick-and-mortar retail channels to sell PCs, hoping online sales can narrow losses from that part of its business. It plans to begin selling its Aptiva PCs exclusively via the Internet by Jan. 1. It still will use retailers for its ThinkPad notebooks and for sales in other countries. Microprocessors made by Intel powered 63 percent of all PCs sold at retail stores in October and 59 percent of those costing less than $1,000. Advanced Micro Devices' share of the overall retail market was 33 percent, and 35 percent for the sub-$1,000 market. Story Copyright ¸ 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.