In Japan, PCs are becoming sooo version 1.0

< Prev | 1 | 2

And while a lot of the decline is in household PCs, businesses are also waiting longer to replace their computers partly because recent advances in PC technology are only incremental, analysts say.

At a consumer electronics event in Tokyo in October, the mostly unpopular stalls showcasing new PCs contrasted sharply with the crowded displays of flat-panel TVs.

“There’s no denying PCs are losing their spunk in Japanese consumers’ eyes,” said Hiroyuki Ishii, a sales official at Japan’s top PC maker, NEC Corp. “There seems to be less and less things only a PC can do,” Ishii said. “The PC’s value will fade unless the PC can offer some breakthrough functions.”

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

The slide has made PC manufacturers desperate to maintain their presence in Japanese homes. Recent desktop PCs look more like audiovisual equipment — or even colorful art objects — than computers.

Sony Corp.’s desktop computers have folded up to become clocks, and its latest version even hangs on the wall. Laptops in a new Sony line are adorned with illustrations from hip designers like ZAnPon. NEC is trying to make its PCs’ cooling fans quieter — to address a common complaint from customers, it says.

Still, sluggish sales weigh on manufacturers.

NEC’s annual PC shipments in Japan shrank 6.2 percent to 2.72 million units in 2006, though overall earnings have been buoyed by mobile phone and networking solutions operations. The trend continued in the first quarter of fiscal 2007 when there was a 14 percent decline from a year earlier.

Sony’s PC shipments for Japan shrank 10 percent in 2006 from a year earlier. But it isn’t about to throw in the towel — yet.

“We feel we’ve reached a new stage in PC development, where consumers are looking for user-friendly machines to complement other electronics,” said Hiroko Nakamura, a Sony official in Tokyo.

Sony’s latest PCs, for example, come with a powerful program that can take photos and video clips and automatically edit them into a slideshow set to music.

Even Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Inc., whose computer sales and market share are surging in the U.S., has seen Macintosh unit sales in Japan slip 5 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2007.

There are other reasons Japan is the first market to see PCs shrink, some analysts say.

“We think of Japanese as workaholics, but many don’t take work home,” said Damian Thong, a technology analyst at Macquarie Bank in Japan. “Once they leave the office, they’re often content with tapping e-mails or downloading music on their phones,” he said.

As Hitachi’s shuttering of its household PC business demonstrates, making PCs has become less attractive. IBM Corp. also left the PC business in 2005, selling its computer unit to China’s Lenovo Group Ltd.

But NEC’s Ishii is persisting.

“We have to get the message out there that PCs are on top in terms of computing power,” he said. “They always will be.”

< Prev | 1 | 2