Compaq clobbered in home PC market

Compaq is losing out in the UK home PC market due to intense competition from direct sellers Tiny and Time.

And rivals Packard Bell and Hewlett-Packard are out-selling the Big Q in PC World and Dixons in this market.

According to figures from IDC, Compaq took ninth place in home PC sales for the first quarter of this year in the UK. It fell behind Gateway and Apple - in seventh and eighth place respectively. Tiny was top of the league, ahead of Packard Bell and Time.

HP grabbed sixth place for Q1 - and its market share grew from 2.6 per cent to 4.9 per cent for the previous twelve months ended January 2000. Compaq saw its market share slip from 7.8 per cent to 2.5 per cent for the same period, while Fujitsu Siemens fell form 6.9 per cent to 2.2 per cent.

Andy Brown, an analyst at IDC, blamed Compaq's slump on distribution problems. He also felt quality issues, which plagued Presarios in Q4 1999, had impacted sales in the first quarter.

Regarding HP's galloping market share, Brown said it was largely down to the vendor refreshing its Pavillion range, offering more models, and becoming a lot more efficient at handling its inventory.

"Overall, it's got a better offering - plus there seems to be a lot of confidence at HP at the moment," he said. ®

The top vendors in the UK home PC market for Q1 were:

1. 
   
2. Tiny
   
3. Packard Bell
   
4. Time
   
5. Dell
   
6. Viglen
   
7. HP
   
8. Gateway
   
9. Apple
   
10. Compaq

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