标题: PC Riot [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 8-29-2012 08:44 标题: PC Riot PC Riot. Financial Times, Aug 24, 2012 (The Lex Column).
"Who'd be a PC maker? Not Dell or HP, clearly. Investors could be forgiven for thinking the market was dying based on their slumping sales. It is not, but it is changing. If the two US makers are not careful, their hoped-for graceful exit of this former cash cow could sour quickly.
"Both US companies this week blamed weakening economies. Dell sniffily dismissed its sliding market share as the result of not wanting to play in aggressively competitive 'low value' markets. But overall PC sales--desktop and laptop--have in fact been flat year-on-year, according to Gartner, leaving the biggest Asians--Lenovo, Acer and Asustek--to gain share. When Dell talked about low value, it had a point in that the wafer-thin operating margins earned by Lenovo and Acer (2 and 0.4 per cent respectively) do not match US thinking about what is a good business. HP's 4.7 per cent--down a percentage point in the past year--looks positively plump. Small wonder both are hoping for improved markets for their high-end products. The danger is, however, that such a better economic mood does not do as much ad they hope.
"There are two reasons to think that a serious risk. Emerging markets, where entry-level products are more popular, are where the growth is. PC penetration in the emerging wold is about a quarter, according to Bernstein, versus 90 per cent in developed countries. Three is all far lower penetration in emerging market companies, at about half of PC-involved jobs against 90 per cent again in more mature markets. The other risk is that high-end customers are exactly those not likely to delay laptop replacements in favour of tablets.
"The industry's great hope is Window 8, Microsoft's new PC and tablet-friendly system. New touchscreen laptops are on their way to a store near you. But margins are unlikely to improve much, leaving this a cut-throat volume game--a specialty of Asian tech groups. Dell and HP could have to give up more margin than they would like to milk this business all the way to exit.
Note:
(a) The above is full text.
(b) Accompanied was an illustration
(i) whose left panel was headlined "Top five PC makers[;] market share (%)"
(ii) and whose right panel was headlined "Operating margins (%) [Though fluctuating, operating margins for the top five makers in 2012* (* latest quarter) were HP (~7.2), Dell (6), Asus (~4.8), Lenovo (2) and Ace (0.4).
(iii) At the bottom of the illustration was "Sources: Bernstein; S&P Capital IQ; companies"
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