But desktop ahead in quantity sold!
By Steve Alexander
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
July 5, 2003
Laptop computers for the first time have surged ahead of traditional, bulkier desktop computers in U.S. retail dollar sales, apparently driven by price, convenience and new services such as wireless Internet access.
Growing laptop sales reflect "a desire for computing products that offer portability, appealing form factors and attractive design," said Stephen Baker, director of industry analysis for the NPD Group, a retail sales tracking service in Port Washington, N.Y.
In May, U.S. retail sales of laptop computers accounted for more than 54 percent of the nearly $500 million spent on personal computers bought in stores, NPD said. Over the past 3d years, laptops have more than doubled their percentage of total retail PC sales dollars.
However, laptops are not about to replace desktop computers, analysts say. There actually are three desktop PC models sold for every laptop that is purchased, but the higher prices for laptops - two to three times more than some desktop models - tends to skew the dollar sales comparison in favor of the portables.
In addition, the growing popularity of laptops is overshadowed by a general slowdown in PC industry sales related to the economy.
Worldwide unit shipments of consumer and business PCs rose only 1.5 percent last year after falling 4 percent in 2001, said IDC, a computer market research firm in Framingham, Mass. Worldwide PC shipments were up 3 percent in the first quarter of 2003.
Still, the rise of laptop computers is an undeniable trend caused by several factors, including advances in technology, declining prices, perceived stylishness and an increasing desire to use a computer outside of a business or home office.
Roger Kay, IDC vice president of client computing, said laptops are popular partly because of the growing availability in public places of wireless Internet services, called Wi-Fi (for wireless fidelity), and partly because the former disadvantages of laptops - high prices and lack of sufficient computing power - have largely disappeared.
Baker said that the average price of a laptop in a retail store dropped to $1,294 in May, down $75 from April and down more than $250 from a year ago. May was the first month in which the average retail store price of a laptop dropped below $1,300, he said.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.
Source: gomemphis
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