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

To: Terry D who wrote (28692)	3/1/1999 6:24:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

Japan's PC Sales Grow in 1st Week of Feb. March 1, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Japan's personal computer shops are waging a sales campaign for new spring models, and sales are showing greater momentum than the 1997 year-end sales battle. Still, they haven't reached the level at the peak in 1998 year-end sales. According to data collected by GfK Japan Ltd., an information service company that deals with point-of-sales data of electrical appliances retailers, PC sales at about 2,000 such stores during the first week of February (Feb. 1-7, 1999), were up 24.5 percent in volume and up 32.5 percent in value from the previous week. (See table.) Compared with the same week last year (Feb. 2-8, 1998), sales were up 66.7 percent in volume and up 67.2 percent in value. The average selling price rose by 13,710 yen from 213,117 yen (US$1,760) in the previous week to 226,827 yen (US$1,880). Many models displayed in shops have been replaced with spring models this week. A steep increase of 66.7 percent in volume was most significant in the three weeks. An increase in the sales of notebook models was especially large, which contributed to the overall growth. Sales both in volume and value are still less than those observed at the peak in the 1998 year-end sales, but has already succeeded those in the fifth week of December 1997 (December 29, 1997 to January 4, 1998), which was the peak of the year-end sales two years ago. Sales in the PC market for consumers has been brisk since the middle of 1998. The average selling price of both desktop and notebook models increased by approximately 10,000 yen (US$80) due to the shift to newly introduced models for this spring season. The average selling price of desktop models was more than 200,000 yen for the first time in four weeks since the first week of January 1999. GfK Japan collects POS data for 55 IT-related retail sales companies centering on volume sales stores of home electric appliances throughout Japan, covering about 3,200 stores (as of April 1998). In cooperation from GfK Japan, Nikkei Market Access gives weekly reports of personal computer 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. It is estimated that the number of PCs sold at these 2,000 stores amounts to about 10 percent of gross domestic shipment, and when limiting it to the storefront sales channel, the share comes to about 25 percent of such shipment. nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com

To: Terry D who wrote (28692)	3/1/1999 6:25:00 PM
From: Fred Levine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

IMO, 1) The stock did go up too fast and a correction was due 2) The analysts fail to distinguish between the chip manufacturers and the equipment people. The current rivalry between INTEL and AMD should hurt their prices, but put pressure on them to increase both productivity and creativity; thus leading to the need for more equipment. I sold some calls when it was very high, but we should see a return to the 60's soon. We should go higher when new news of orders are announced. fred