Compaq leads boom in PC sales figures

By CHRIS BARTON

PC sales surged in the third quarter in New Zealand, up 11.4 per cent over the previous quarter.

Analyst Mark Cribbens, of research company IDC, said the record sales of 92,302 PCs was hard to explain, but the figures showed a return of high-end corporate purchasing.

The third quarter was traditionally one of the weakest of the year, he said, but distortions created by Y2K buying last year might now have worked their way out of the system.

Another factor could be purchases brought forward because of the declining exchange rate.

The big winner in the quarter is Compaq, which has consolidated its top spot with 24.1 per cent market share. It is followed by Hewlett Packard, then Dell, IBM and Toshiba.

IDC would not give numbers for the top five players, but Mr Cribbens said there were "comfortable gaps" between each.

Dell said it had sold 9000 PCs in the third quarter, which it had expected would be enough to take the No 2 spot off Hewlett Packard.

But while the leading brands all increased their market share, local assemblers took a hit - dropping to 30.2 per cent.

Mr Cribbens said the third-quarter boom meant IDC was revising its predictions for the year of 5 per cent growth. He expected growth would now be at about 7 per cent.

The only sector of the market not to show growth was server sales, which declined 3.9 per cent from the previous quarter.

Mr Cribbens said the average price of PCs across the board had risen 7.9 per cent to $3819.

The consumer market accounted for 29,400 units in the quarter - up 4.5 per cent from the previous three months and up a huge 35.3 per cent from the same quarter a year ago.