Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2001/02/28/p4_sold_out_in_retail/

P4 sold out in retail last December – Intel

Helps if you don't ship too many...

By Tony Smith

Posted in Channel, 28th February 2001 23:05 GMT

Intel Developer Forum Intel Developer Forum, San Jose We'd like to be the first to congratulate Chipzilla [are you mad? Ed] for bucking the trend of weak, nay abysmal PC sales last Christmas.

Despite the downturn, Intel OEMs were able to sell all the Pentium 4 machines they pumped into the US retail channel in December, so the company's architecture marketing chief, Anand Chandrasekher, tells us.

Of course, since the P4 was only launched at the rear end of November 2000, we're not entirely sure how many P4 boxes made into retail during the following month, but whatever the figure, they were all sold.

Anand couldn't provide us with an exact amount - he couldn't provide us with a number at all - but we're sure it's a statistically significant one, ie. more than three. This despite a dip of 24 per cent in unit shipments through the US retail channel, according to stats from market researcher PC Data.

Indeed, according to PC Data's numbers, only one per cent of all PCs sold in retail during December contained a P4. Cutting the price of the 1.4 and 1.5GHz parts on 10 December may have helped Intel achieve this feat. As might the launch of the 1.3GHz chip around the same time.

Intel will have to hope that the other price cuts planned for 2001 have a similar effect, particularly if its shipment target of 18-20 million P4s this year - a figure Merrill Lynch analyst Joe Osha was last month claiming the company is telling its OEMs - is to be met. ®