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To: Ben Antanaitis who wrote (54495)	7/27/1998 6:36:00 PM
From: Mazman	Respond to of 176387

Ben and thread: Analysts Disagree On PC Market, Compaq & Dell Lead In US 07/27/98); 1:53 PM CST / By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. Is the PC market limping or chugging robustly along in double-digit growth? Two respected market watchers, Gartner Group's Dataquest unit and International Data Corp. were in apparent disagreement about the answer on Monday, as they reported different sets of numbers on US and worldwide PC shipments. At least both firms agreed that Compaq/Digital and Dell held just over 14 percent market share apiece in the US market, in what came down to a dead heat for first place. Gartner Group unit Dataquest said the worldwide industry posted "steady growth" in the second quarter of 1998 as shipments surpassed 21.1 million units, up 13.9 percent over the same period last year. Growth also hit double digits in the US, said Dataquest, with a growth rate around 12 percent. But equally respected market watcher International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., was much less cheerful, describing both the US and worldwide growth rates as "mediocre" for the second quarter. "PC vendor shipments grew 10 percent over last year and declined one percent sequentially," said IDC on Monday. "Worldwide, PC shipments rose seven percent over 2Q97 and declined three percent sequentially, as Western Europe continued its rebound and the Asia/Pacific and Japan markets experienced negative year-over-year growth." The studies may illustrate a principle too often forgotten, that statistics like PC shipments are based on raw data that analysts have to interpret, and they don't always agree about what the data means. Newsbytes could not reach analysts at either IDC nor Dataquest before deadline Monday. The research firms agreed closely on some points. First, Compaq/Digital was in a dead heat with fast-growing Dell Computer for top position in the US market. Second, as vendors tightened their channels and reduced inventory, they throttled back production. Reducing output, while selling off the inventory, tended to hide true consumer demand levels from a vendor-to-channel perspective. Scott Miller, senior industry analyst for Dataquest's personal computer systems and peripherals program, said poor performance in the Asia-Pacific region and in Japan hurt all companies studied. He said true demand was masked by the inventory reducing process. IDC analyst Christine Arrington also noted "a focus on leaner inventory positions" in the market in general. However, unit shipments in Western Europe grew 20 percent, said IDC, riven by strong demand in France, Germany, and the UK and further boosted by the introduction of Windows 98 at the quarter's end. IDC said the next tier of vendors in the US are as close as Compaq/Digital and Dell, with HP, Gateway, and PB NEC at almost identical market shares between 7 percent and 8 percent. Dataquest's figures agreed fairly closely, giving the three slightly higher market share than did IDC. Reported by Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com