News March 22, 08:09 Eastern Time
AMD-Based Desktop PCs Extend US Retail Market Share
RESTON, Va., March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Unit sales of Windows-based PCs increased less than 1 percent and revenues plunged 16 percent compared to February 1998, according to PC Data's February Retail Hardware Report. The average price for Windows-based PCs fell to $947, representing a 17 percent decline from last year, although this was a slight increase over January's average price of $944.
Sub-$1,000 PCs continued to dominate the market in February, accounting for 62 percent of unit sales, down slightly from January's record 65.7 percent. Unit growth in this segment was 22 percent higher versus February 1998. Within this group the largest unit growth was concentrated in the sub-$600 market, which grew 657 percent over February 1998, and now represents 19.9 percent of PCs sold at retail. This growth came at the expense of the $600-to-$1,000 PC market, whose unit share fell 12.9 percent, although it remained the largest portion of the retail PC market with 42 percent. PCs priced between $1,000 and $1,500 accounted for 33.3 percent of sales in February, and represented a 5 percent increase over January 1999 and a 4.6 percent gain over February 1998. Sales of PCs priced above $1,500 represented only 5 percent of total retail sales, and registered a 70 percent unit decline over February 1998.
"While overall retail sales growth slowed for Windows-based PCs, certain companies and segments were able to exploit the changing makeup of the US retail PC market to gain increased market presence," said Stephen Baker, senior hardware analyst at PC Data Inc. "Among the winners in February were AMD, with strong market share growth, eMachines, with an impressive increase in sales, and the sub-$600 PC market, which benefited from these two companies focusing attention on that sector."
The AMD-K60 family of desktop PC processors exceeded 50 percent of US retail sales for the first time in February 1999. Unit sales of PCs based on AMD processors increased by more than 70 percent versus February 1998. PCs with AMD chips accounted for 51.4 percent of overall unit sales and 65.7 percent of the sub-$1,000 sales. AMD's strongest suit was in the $600-$1,000 market where 73 percent of all sales were of PC's based on AMD processors. AMD also accounted for 47 percent of unit sales in the sub-$600 market.
Intel's retail market share declined to 38.3 percent. Although Intel chips were in only 18.5 percent of sub-$1,000 PCs, it led the $1,000-$1, 500 market with 65.7 percent of sales and captured nearly all sales of PCs priced above this mark. Cyrix's market share declined to 10.3 percent from 15.7 percent in January although unit growth increased more than 280 percent versus February 1998.
PCs powered by an AMD processor sold, on average, for $851 in February, while the average Celeron sold for $917, the Pentium II for $1,346 and Cyrix-based PCs sold for an average of $583.
Compaq was the market leader in February with 30.9 percent of sales, on a unit increase of 4.3 percent. However, Compaq's revenue fell 17 percent, as the average price of a Compaq PC dropped below $1,000 for the first time to $961. This represents a 5 percent decline from January's average price of $1,011 and a 20.8 percent decrease from the February 1998 price of $1,212. Hewlett-Packard accounted for 28.9 percent of retail units, which represented a 25 percent increase over February 1998. Four of the top five selling PC SKUs in February were Hewlett-Packard products. IBM finished in third place with a 10.7 percent share followed very closely by newcomer eMachines, with 9.9 percent. Former market leader Packard-Bell NEC's share dropped to 7.5 percent in February.
Based in Reston, VA, PC Data has been providing point-of-sale data since 1991 and has become the only comprehensive source of software and hardware sales information. PC Data supplies sales information to more than 800 software and hardware firms, which account for nearly 95 percent of total computer industry sales. The company's latest initiative includes @PCData, an Internet monitoring service. In addition to tracking software and hardware sales through retailers, PC Data also tracks sales through educational resellers, corporate resellers and distributors |
