April 26, 1999
C Shipments Rose in Quarter;
Compaq Loses Market Share
By DAVID P. HAMILTON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Unexpectedly strong consumer demand fueled another acceleration in personal-computer shipments in the first quarter, although struggling Compaq Computer Corp. lost market share to competitors, according to two major research firms.
The findings of International Data Corp. and Gartner Group Inc.'s Dataquest unit show that the PC market remains far healthier than some investors have feared following a significant drop in first-quarter profit at No. 1 Compaq. They also suggest that rapidly falling PC prices have spurred more consumers into the market, even as some companies slow PC purchases in response to the year-2000 computer bug.
"It was pretty much a Compaq-specific problem rather than an industrywide problem," said David Stremba, a Dataquest analyst, who added that Compaq was a bit slow to lower its prices. "It looks like they misread the quarter early on and thought it was an industrywide slowdown," he said.
Overall, IDC found that world-wide PC shipments grew 19% in the quarter from the year earlier, to 24.5 million units, well above its earlier estimate of 14% growth. Dataquest reported robust growth of 17% in the quarter, to 25 million units. The two firms' estimates frequently differ because of the different methodologies they use.
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PC Sales Accelerate World-wide first-quarter PC shipments, in thousands of units, and market share:
UNIT SALES MARKET SHARE
1998 1999 % chg. 1998 1999
Compaq 3,047 3,350 +10% 14.3% 13.4%
Dell 1,539 2,295 +49 7.2 9.2
IBM 1,609 2,105 +31 7.5 8.4
Hewlett-Packard 1,319 1,491 +13 6.2 6.0
Gateway 779 1,076 +38 3.7 4.3
Note: Figures do not include PC servers
Source: Dataquest
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PC prices, which have plunged below $600 in some cases, drove strong U.S. consumer sales. IDC, of Framingham, Mass., estimated that U.S. PC shipments rose 24% in the quarter, while Dataquest, of San Jose, Calif., figured they rose 21%. Sales in Europe and Japan were also strong, despite economic uncertainty in both areas.
Corporate PC sales, while steady, weren't out of the ordinary, the firms said. "Overall, the corporate market was solid, but not as strong as we'd like it to be," said John Brown, an analyst at IDC. "We think there's still some hesitation" due to the year-2000 problem, which has prompted some companies to shift computer spending into fixing the bug.
Compaq still sells more PCs than any other company, but its grip on the No. 1 slot no longer looks so firm. Compaq's world-wide market share dropped to 13% from 14%, according to Dataquest. Dataquest estimated that the Houston-based computer maker saw its PC shipments rise only 10%, compared with overall market growth of 17%. IDC reported similar findings, although it saw a smaller drop in Compaq's market share.
By contrast, Dell Computer Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. roared ahead. Dell saw its world-wide shipments rise by half in the quarter, both firms reported, propelling it past IBM into second place and significantly narrowing Compaq's lead. Third-place IBM didn't do so badly itself, with a roughly 30% increase in shipments.
Market share for fourth-place Hewlett-Packard Co. slipped slightly on a world-wide basis, but did well in the U.S., where it gained a point and boosted shipments roughly 40%. Apple Computer Inc. continued its recovery with a banner quarter; while its world-wide market share still hovers at 3.4%, that is up from 3.1% a year earlier, IDC's Mr. Brown said.
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