Vendors at the Taipei leg of the IT Month expo said their cash registers were ringing non-stop as 750,000 visitors flooded the Taipei World Trade Center over the course of the nine-day show, which ended on Sunday.
The number of visitors this year was similar to last year's, according to figures provided by the Taipei Computer Association (台北市電腦公會), the event's organizer.
Approximately 140,000 consumers hunting for last-minute bargains packed the two exhibition halls on the closing day alone, compared with 60,000 to 80,000 visitors on weekdays, it said.
Consumers went home with great discounts and freebies as companies cleared their inventories before the introduction of newer products next year.
Merchandise such as liquid-crystal-display (LCD) monitors, notebooks, MP3 players and digital cameras remained the hottest products at the show, vendors said.
ViewSonic International Corp, the nation's leading LCD monitor maker, reported brisk business. The company sold more than 10,000 monitors at the show.
ViewSonic's 22-inch widescreen models were especially well received, accounting for more than 50 percent of the sales.
"Larger screens and widescreen monitors will boom next year, as more multimedia entertainment applications will be available, coupled with the launch of the Vista operating system," sales director Jim Tsai (蔡進明) said.
Most enquiries concerned the company's new ViewDock series, the industry's first monitors to support iPod digital music players, he said.
Sales of ViewDocks, available in 19-inch and 22-inch widescreen models, made up 15 percent of the overall sales, it said.
IT Month also gave computer vendors reasons to smile.
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), the nation's top notebook computer brand, said that the expo generated sales amounting to NT$300 million (US$9.3 million), 30 percent more than last year's show.
"We didn't reduce prices much, but we gave consumers good warranty programs to assure them of product quality," Asustek sales director Kevin Lin (
"Consumers were especially willing to splurge on the last day, when we saw a successful deal rate of 80 percent," he said.
Acer Inc, the nation's second-largest notebook computer brand, said that sales of its portable computers grew 30 percent over last year, boosted by a limited-edition laptop tailor-made for fans of New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民).
Epson Taiwan Technology & Trading Ltd said in a press statement yesterday that its sales set a new record over the previous shows. The company sold more than 1,000 color laser printers, 1,100 projectors, 900 photo printers and 8,000 multifunctional printers, it said.
After the Taipei leg, the IT Month expo will be presented in Taichung from Dec. 15 to Dec. 20, in Tainan from Dec. 28 to Jan. 2, and in Kaohsiung from Jan. 11 to Jan. 16.
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