Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Night Writer who wrote (35739)	11/3/1998 9:31:00 PM
From: Elwood P. Dowd	Respond to of 97611

Europe Keeps Its Position as World's Fastest-Growing PC Market: Dataquest Bloomberg News November 3, 1998, 4:01 p.m. PT London, Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Personal computer sales in Europe rose 23.4 percent in the third quarter as prices fell, extending the region's status as the world's fastest-growing PC market, market research company Dataquest Inc. said. Sales rose to 5.64 million units in the three months to September compared with 4.57 million units in the year-earlier period. Sales gained 29.5 percent in Western Europe but overall European figures were lowered due to a 40.7 percent drop in Russia, Europe's fourth-largest PC market. A 20 percent drop in the average price of an entry-level PC combined with a Europe- wide economic recovery helped boost consumer and corporate spending on computer hardware. ''This is the fourth straight quarter where Europe has outpaced the U.S.,'' said Chris Jones, an analyst at Garter Group's Dataquest research unit. He said PC sales grew 18.2 percent in the U.S. while worldwide PC sales grew 13.7 percent. Direct PC seller Dell Computer Corp. grew fastest, posting a 2.7 percent increase in market share. It is now contending for the No.2 spot with International Business Machines Corp., with each holding 8.1 percent of the European PC market. Compaq Computer Corp. maintained its lead as the largest seller, posting a 1.3 percent increase for a 17.4 percent market share, more than twice that of Dell and IBM combined. ''The sales beat our own estimates,'' said Kasper Rorsted, Compaq EMEA's vice president for marketing and electronic commerce. ''The pervasiveness of the Internet is playing a role.'' Rorsted said corporations were spending more on hardware purchases to reduce exposure to computer problems associated with the millenium bug and the European single currency. Still, Dataquest figures showed sales among consumers grew fastest, as home-based purchases rose 48.8 percent to 1.37 million units. Sales to professionals rose 17 percent to 4.27 million units. After a slump in European PC sales in 1996 and early 1997, demand recovered for a fifth consecutive quarter as Germany, France, Italy and other nations that cut spending to qualify for European monetary union loosened fiscal restraints. Sales grew fastest in Sweden, which posted a 64.7 percent increase, as employee-purchase programs enabled companies to sell PCs to their employees at low prices. While IBM won a contract with Volvo AB, Dell secured one with Telia AB. Among the three largest markets, sales grew most in France at 34.6 percent, followed by the U.K. at 28.3 percent and Germany at 22.4 percent. Last week, market research firms IDC, a unit of International Data Group, and London-based Context, said European PC sales grew about 22 percent in the third quarter. IDC said sales rose 21.9 percent to 4.9 million units, while Context pegged growth at 22.4 percent to 5.25 million units. Dataquests' Jones said there's more scope for growth in Europe than in the U.S. and predicted 1998 sales would be at least 20 percent more than 1997. Almost one in two Americans had a personal computer in 1996, compared with one of every four Germans and one in 10 Italians.