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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (36868)	8/18/2000 10:45:59 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

Asia's PC Market is Outperforming U.S., Europe, Dataquest Says August 18, 2000 (HONG KONG) -- The Asia Pacific PC market grew by 26 percent in units in the second quarter of this year versus the same period in 1999, outperforming the huge U.S. and European markets, according to research firm Dataquest Inc. Analysts said that total PC shipments in the Asia Pacific grew to 4.1 million units in the second quarter of this year as a result of increasing market confidence in the economy, continuous IT infrastructure expansion fueled by e-business and low PC penetration rates in some local Asian markets. "We believe the region is right on track to break the 18-million-unit mark by the end of this year," said Ian Bertram, Gartner's regional director and principal analyst for computers and peripherals. "The overall regional market will continue to grow as a result of strong growth in markets such as China and Korea, as well as the remarkable rebound of the ASEAN markets. We are forecasting the total regional growth rate for the year to reach 35 percent year-on-year." Annie Chung, Gartner's analyst for personal computers, noted, "China remains the biggest PC market in the region, with a market share of 38.2 percent this quarter. China's general economy is currently buoyant, and this in turn has supported the growth of the PC market. We are expecting strong growth from Chinese vendors due to huge numbers of newly registered local PC brands. Purchase activity in the home market has also been brisk, especially in cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou." "This quarter, China's notebook PC market grew significantly to 60 percent, while desktop PC shipments increased steadily at 30 percent," added Chung. "This is an indication that China is catching up with the technology; we are expecting to see growing maturity among the Chinese PC vendors. In Hong Kong, the rise of dot-coms and the economic recovery have resulted in healthy growth for the local PC market this quarter. Shipments from the business sector grew 50 percent, against 34 percent in the second quarter of 1999." Lillian Tay, Gartner's senior analyst for computers and peripherals, said, "The Korean market remained healthy even though it registered a seasonal quarter-on-quarter decrease. Government initiatives to build IT infrastructure in the education sector helped spur demand." Tay said that as a result, the market has increased by 84 percent in units compared with the previous year. Heavy competition and price wars have been observed among the major vendors including Samsung, TriGem and Hyunju, which benefited buyers, she added. Gartner also observed better performance in the professional market for this quarter after a slowdown in the first quarter due to Y2K-related issues. Governments in the different countries across the region continued to place emphasis on developing a knowledge-based economy with a work force that is capable of using IT. This has led to an overall increase in demand for PCs in the region. (Eleanor Yeung, Hong Kong Editor, Asia BizTech/Nikkei Electronics Asia)

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (36868)	8/18/2000 10:56:05 AM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Brian, >The market research firm predicted a return to "good" unit growth in the second half of 2000, barring severe memory shortages. IDC said vendors currently have substantial backlogs of orders for workstations based on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT operating system. Good news, or bad news, however you want to look at it, but Windows 2000, soon to take off, requires more memory to run well than NT. No surprise there though, what new OS has ever required less memory? Tony