Home PC Sales Pass Peak

Matt Trask

PC vendors' dreams of putting a computer in every home may take longer to realize than first expected. Common wisdom says PCs have only started to penetrate the home market and that the sales growth in recent years will continue. Not so, says Bruce Ryon, a PC analyst at Dataquest (San Jose, CA). Multimedia PC shipments in the U.S. market declined for two consecutive quarters (i.e., the first and second quarters in 1995). Furthermore, a random-dial survey of 10,000 homes shows that 66 percent said they have no plans , now or in the future, to buy a computer.

Ryon attributes the phenomenal growth in recent years of multimedia PCs to extensive corporate layoffs, which displaced workers who then began new careers as consultants and contract workers. Workers that were not laid off also bought home PCs to handle the increased work load by working at night. Ryon's advice to vendors: Focus on repeat sales to existing customers.

PC vendors should also pursue markets outside of the U.S. According to Link Resources' (New York, NY) Global New Media Consumer Study, consumer PC shipments in the Asia-Pacific Rim and European markets will outpace those in the U.S. by 54 percent in 1997 ($34 billion compared to $22 billion).

That gap will increase even more by the year 2000, when the consultancy forecasts sales of $48 billion compared to $27 billion in the U.S. Countries with relatively low PC penetration in the household include France (22 percent), the U.K. (25 percent), Japan (21 percent), Germany (30 percent), and China (7 percent).

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U.S. Home Multimedia PC Shipments

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Home PC sales declined following sharp increases in 1994.

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Few Workers Telecommute...but Many Could

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Although almost a quarter of 820 adults surveyed for U.S. News & World Report think they could telecommute at least part-time, only 9 percent have done so. One possible reason: 69 percent said the clearest advantage to working at the office instead of telecommuting was having access to technology such as the copier or fax machine. Having a PC at home with a scanner and fax/modem could address that problem. But 64 percent also said interaction with coworkers is a big advantage of working at the office.