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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hlpinout who wrote (89234)	1/25/2001 6:50:47 AM
From: hlpinout	Respond to of 97611

January 25, 2001 5:03am Compaq Says European Demand Is Picking Up Reuters LONDON (Reuters) - Compaq Corp, the world's largest personal computer maker, expects sales growth in Europe to exceed the U.S. this year as the European market has already turned a corner and has not been hurt by the dot.com downturn. ``I'm optimistic and expect double-digit growth in Europe, Middle East and Africa in 2001,'' Compaq's European president Rob Walker told Reuters in a telephone interview after fourth- quarter results were published late on Tuesday. Growth in Europe, where Houston-based Compaq generates 40 percent of its total sales, will outstrip the company's forecast of total revenue growth between 5 to 8 per cent, he added. ``Next year (in 2001) we'll probably grow faster than the U.S.,'' Walker said. Sales growth will be driven by strong electronic commerce investments by ``old-economy'' customers as well as by an increase in the number of corporates shifting to Microsoft's Windows 2000 PC operating system, Walker said. ``We see a significant increase in the number of Windows 2000 migration projects,'' he said. Reluctance of enterprises to adopt Windows 2000 as a successor to Windows NT has held back growth of personal computer unit sales for most of the year 2000. Market research companies IDC and Gartner said on Tuesday that fourth-quarter PC sales were once again single digit, down from the industry's long-term average of 15 to 17 percent. But Walker said Compaq Europe had beaten the trend by growing twice as fast as the market average of 5.4 percent for all personal computers combined. STORAGE, WIRELESS ALSO STRONG Other growth areas where Compaq Europe expected to benefit from strong demand were storage computers and wireless computers, such as its handheld iPAQ pocket PC. Walker did not expect financing problems at Internet service providers, application service providers or telecom companies to hurt spending on new computers. ``I believe these financing problems to be a transitional issue. They are not long-term operational problems. These are robust growth areas, and companies need to build the infrastructure,'' Walker said. Although some companies reduced spending on computers, for instance in the dot.com sector where a number of companies collapsed, Europe's old-economy firms are now stepping up their e-commerce investments. ``The dot.com bubble has burst, but that's more than offset by the investments of the old economy,'' he said. Prospects for the computer industry appeared better this year than in 2000, when large customers took a breather in updating their systems after the hectic run-up to the millennium, he said. ²²²²Qc