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

To: S.C. Barnard who wrote (38084)	12/1/1998 6:16:00 PM
From: Elwood P. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Tuesday December 1 1998 PC shipments to region forecast to grow again ELLA LEE The market for personal computers in the Asia-Pacific region seems to be rebounding from a slump as shipments in the third quarter registered their lowest year-on-year decline this year. Shipments of PCs are expected to grow again during the busy Christmas season and maintain that pace next year, International Data Corp (IDC) says. About 2.5 million PCs, worth US$3.54 billion, were shipped in the third quarter, representing a decline of 2.3 per cent in unit shipments and of 26 per cent in revenue, compared with the same quarter last year, IDC said. The regional PC market was hard hit in the first half, falling 4.5 per cent in shipments and 35 per cent in revenue. The decline in revenue was due mainly to falling prices of PC products and the currency crisis. The third-quarter result was better than IDC's original forecast of a 3.1 per cent decline. This was because the PC market as well as currencies were recovering, Dane Anderson, IDC's research director of computer systems in the Asia-Pacific, said, adding that some key markets such as South Korea and Australia performed better than expected. IDC expected the PC shipments to grow in the last three months of the year by 5 per cent over last year's fourth quarter, when the market was first hit by the regional economic slump. The PC market was believed to have hit bottom this year, with an expected 1 per cent decline in PCs shipped, and IDC forecast next year's PC shipments would rise 16 per cent. "Even those [countries] which have been hard hit such as Indonesia, where the PC market decreased by 82 per cent, will start to turn around, and we expect a 14 per cent increase in Indonesia," Mr Anderson said. "But [South Asia and Korea] will not be as strong as" previous years. After Indonesia, Thailand, Korea and Malaysia reported the worst third-quarter downturns, with year-on-year shipment declines of 44 per cent, 35 per cent and 27 per cent respectively. By contrast, the mainland and India continued their rapid growth of 28 per cent and 24 per cent respectively, while markets in Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand remained robust. The mainland is the largest and fastest-growing market in the region, accounting for 38 per cent of regional PC shipments, with 40 per cent forecast for next year. This benefits key mainland players and strengthens market positions. IDC said a major competitive shift in the third quarter was the replacement of Hewlett-Packard (HP) by Legend as the third-largest PC vendor in the region. Also, first-tier mainland player Founder marked its entrance into the top 10. Legend's success was based on its leading position in the mainland. The company recently re-entered the Hong Kong market with a new management team after failing nine months ago, Mr Anderson said. He believed Legend was looking at the SAR as a testing ground before branching out into other geographical areas. However, Legend should not expand too quickly, but further strengthen its position in the mainland where all vendors were working hard to increase market share, he said. Though HP fell to fourth position in the region in the third quarter, it achieved 26 per cent year-on-year growth with exceptional gains in the mainland, Australia and New Zealand, IDC said. Also, HP is the second-largest foreign PC vendor in the mainland, behind IBM and ahead of Compaq. HP has a 5 per cent share of the regional PC market, and Legend has 6 per cent. Compaq and IBM continue to be the first and the second PC vendors in the region, with market shares of 9 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. Acer is fifth-largest, despite a year-on-year decline of 24 per cent. (source:SCMP news)