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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Duker who wrote (28515)	2/22/1999 4:56:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

PC Sales in 4th Week of Jan. Rise Slightly in Japan February 22, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Sales of personal computers in Japan continued to decline in the initial three weeks of January, but a slight rise was seen in the fourth week in terms of units. According to statistics compiled by GfK Japan Ltd., PC sales at about 2,000 shops in the fourth week of January (Jan. 25-31) posted a week-on-week increase of 2.0 percent in terms of units and a 0.5 percent decline in value. GfK Japan is an information service company that handles point-of-sales data of volume shops that sell home electric appliances. Compared with the same week last year (Jan. 26-Feb. 1, 1998), PC sales posted a year-on-year increase of 24.8 percent on a unit basis and a 18.4-percent increase in terms of value. Desktop PCs scored week-on-week increases in both units and value, while notebook PCs suffered declines in both categories. Retailers began displaying some spring models in their shops at the end of January, and the appearance of the new models is widely expected to boost PC sales. The average PC retail price in the fourth week of January was 213,117 yen (US$1,785), down 5,338 yen from the previous week's level of 218,455 yen (US$1,830), and registering an all-time low since GfK Japan began compiling the statistics. The average retail price of a desktop PC is now at a record low level, and prices of notebook PCs have been declining since the beginning of the year. GfK Japan collects POS data from 55 IT-related retail sales companies centering on volume sales stores of home electric appliances, covering about 3,200 stores (as of April 1998) throughout Japan. In cooperation with GfK Japan, Nikkei Market Access provides weekly reports of PC sales in number and value. The volume and value of sales have been based on the data obtained from the same 41 companies (about 2,000 stores) since April 1996 so as to enable time series comparison. The number of PCs sold at the 2,000 stores is estimated to comprise about 10 percent of gross domestic shipments, and when limiting it to the storefront sales channel, the share comes to about 25 percent of such shipments. nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com