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To: Dale Baker who wrote (2166)	4/20/1999 1:19:00 PM
From: EPS	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3813

Japan's PC Sales Rise Nearly 20 Pct. in Fourth Week of March April 19, 1999 (TOKYO) -- In the middle of their spring sales campaigns, large discount retailers saw sales of personal computers rise in the fourth week of March by almost 20 percent from the previous week. According to data compiled by Gfk Japan Ltd., sales of PCs in Japan at some 20,000 shops increased in the fourth week of March (March 22-28, 1999) by 18.9 percent in units and by 19.5 percent in value from the previous week. The sales also surpassed the results of the same week of the previous year (March 23-29, 1998) by 61.1 percent in units and by 61.3 percent in value. Gfk Japan is an information service company dealing with point-of-sales data of some 55 large discount retailers of home electric appliances. The average retail price of a PC was 233,775 yen, or 1,144 yen higher than in the previous week. (118.92 yen = US$1) The end of the fiscal year, a time during which schools also are in spring recess, has usually been a lucrative period for PC sales in Japan. But that was not entirely true this year. However, the fourth week of March witnessed a large increase in PC sales in comparison to both the results of the previous week this year and the same week of the previous year. The sales volume in the fourth week of March matched the peak sales in the first week of December 1998, during the year-end sales campaign. The increase in the average retail price was 1,139 yen among desktop models and 1,423 yen among notebook models. The debut of new models resulted in a gradual rise in prices. Gfk Japan collects POS data from 55 IT-related retail sales companies centering on high-volume stores specializing in home electric appliances. It covers about 3,200 stores (as of April 1998) throughout the country. Nikkei Market Access provides weekly reports of PC sales in volume and value, in cooperation with Gfk Japan. The sales data has been based on the same 41 companies (with about 2,000 stores) since April 1996. The number of PCs sold at the 2,000 stores is estimated to comprise about 10 percent of Japan's gross shipments, and when limiting the sales to retail sales channels, the share comes to about 25 percent of such shipments.