CompUSA swings axe on overheads

The PC price wars have claimed another victim in the form of America’s biggest computer retailer. CompUSA is introducing swingeing cuts to its overheads, in response to tumbling PC prices and margins. The lights go out on 14 of its 200 stores, and up to 1,500 staff (from a workforce of 21,000) get the chop. This will cost it $40-50 million in restructuring charges. The cuts are dressed up as "fundamentally redefining CompUSA’s business concept". In other words, it will reduce PC selling space, and fill the shelves with more home entertainment and other consumer electronics gadgets --digital cameras, video games and DVD movies, and the like. ®