Compaq And Toshiba Battle For Number One Position In Retail Shelf Space
Business Wire - January 28, 1998 11:36
%ARS %TEXAS %COMPUTERS %ELECTRONICS %COMED V%BW P%BW
IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 28, 1998--Compaq holds the number one position controlling 27.2% of the notebook shelf space at major retailers, according to a January study conducted by ARS. But, Toshiba is a close second with a 27.0% presence on the ARS Shelf Space Scordcard. With Compaq no longer leading the race by a large margin, the combat arises once again for the number one position.
According to Joshua Council, mobile computing analyst with ARS, "The expansion of Compaq's non-Intel Presario line of notebooks going head-to-head with Toshiba's new Satellite 300 retail series will be a great battle. Compaq's new non-Intel models at a very competitive price point will put a lot of pressure on Toshiba's retail series." According to Toshiba representatives, Toshiba will be focusing a greater emphasis on retail during the first quarter of 1998. "This will also create a challenge to Compaq to increase its position in the channel once again over Toshiba," says Council. According to ARS data, Toshiba held the number one position in January 1997 followed by Compaq and Texas Instruments. Two years ago also had Toshiba in the number one position followed by Apple and IBM.
The ARS 4Q 1997 shelf space study also shows that Fujitsu holds 12.5% of the retail shelf space for the number three position over IBM and Sony. "This has been a tight race for third place among Fujitsu, IBM, and Sony since October of 1997," says Council.
Of all the retailers studied, only CompUSA has continued to increase their allocation of notebook shelf space since the holiday season. This would suggest they are expecting an increase in notebook sales, expanding shelf space by over 3 percent. The greatest decreases over the last month were Circuit City and Best Buy, decreasing notebook shelf space by 27.3% and 20.6%, respectively. The average retail store now carries 9.6 notebooks, compared to 9.3 notebooks at this time last year.
"During the recent holiday season, the allocation of shelf space was expanded by retailers by a margin of 13.6% in notebook shelf space over November 1997. Now that the spirit of the season is past, shelf space has declined by 10.9 percent," adds Council.
ARS conducted a survey of 28 store locations from January 1-15 for the ARS Shelf Space Update. The survey is intended to give a scorecard of the number of notebooks that vendors currently have on retail store shelves on a monthly basis. The chains surveyed for this report include Best Buy, Circuit City, Computer City, CompUSA, OfficeMax, and Office Depot.
Compaq controls the number one spot with an average of 2.60 notebooks across all stores surveyed, followed by Toshiba with a 2.58 unit presence. Fujitsu ranks number three with an average of 1.19 notebooks across all stores.
Notebook Manufacturer ------
Rank Of The Avg. Number Of Notebooks Across All Retail Stores
Manufacturer (Jan. 1997-- (Dec. 1997-- Jan.
Rank) Rank) 1998
Compaq 1.27 2 3.10 1 2.60
Toshiba 2.20 1 3.05 2 2.58
Fujitsu 1.00 4 1.17 3 1.19
IBM 1.00 5 1.00 4 0.99
Sony No Presence 0.89 5 0.78
Hitachi 0.39 8 0.50 6 0.44
CTX No Presence 0.37 7 0.42
Acer 0.33 9 0.35 8 0.17
Apple 0.19 12 0.23 9 0.25
NEC 0.31 10 0.07 10 0.06
Texas Instruments 1.08 3 No Presence N/A
Sharp 0.89 6 No Presence N/A
WinBook 0.42 7 No Presence N/A
Canon 0.02 11 No Presence N/A
Samsung 0.03 13 No Presence N/A
Hewlett-Packard 0.02 14 No Presence N/A
ABOUT ARS:
ARS is a marketing research firm that specializes in tracking the high-volume PC and peripheral channels with a focus on product marketing, pricing, and margin analysis. The company publishes "The Marketing and Promotion Summary" - daily updates on channel activity sent via e-mail. ARS also publishes "Price/Margin Models" that track street pricing and reseller cost for the retail and non-retail distribution channels including resellers, dealers, mail-order, and the emerging Internet commerce channels. In addition to PCs, ARS analyzes a variety of peripheral products including printers, scanners, monitors, multifunction products, digital cameras, modems, handheld PCs, and printer supplies. Additional details can be found on the ARS web site at ars1.com.
CONTACT: ARS, Inc., Irving
Editorial Contact:
Joshua Council, 972/570-7100
Fax: 972/570-4201
Internet: JCouncil@ARS1.com
or
Sales Contact:
Mike Hagan, 619/551-0008
Fax: 619/551-0009
Internet: MHagan@ARS1.com
or
Datum Inc.
Japan Contact:
Shuji Hirooka, 0425-51-4001
Fax: 0425-51-3446
Compuserve 100201,135
Internet: 100201.135@compuserve.com
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