Fujitsu Ltd, Japan’s biggest provider of computer services, said the company will miss its annual shipment target for personal computers amid slow demand for Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 operating system.
Initial demand for the software, introduced in October, is “weak,” Fujitsu president Masami Yamamoto told reporters in Tokyo on Thursday. A slump in demand in Europe resulting from the eurozone sovereign debt crisis will also erode sales he said. PC deliveries for the year ending March 31 next year could be more than 6 million units, compared with an October estimate of 7 million units, he said.
US retail sales of devices running Windows systems fell 21 percent from a year earlier in the four weeks after Microsoft released Windows 8 on Oct. 26, according to a Nov. 29 report by Port Washington, New York-based NPD Group Inc. The decrease has been fueled by a 24 percent drop in sales of notebook computers as customers opt for Apple Inc’s iPad or tablets powered by Google Inc’s Android software.
“We can’t be optimistic about the PC industry,” said Yoshihisa Toyosaki, a Tokyo-based analyst at Architect Grand Design, an electronics research and consulting company. “PC makers’ bet on Windows 8 has failed as cheaper tablet computers are taking away customers.”
Fujitsu is focusing on information technology services, helping it weather a slump in electronics sales that contributed to record losses at Sony Corp, Panasonic Corp and Sharp Corp. Yamamoto said the company does not plan to lower prices for its PCs, which along with mobile phones accounted for a combined 20 percent of Fujitsu’s revenue in the year that ended March 31, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Fujitsu doesn’t plan to join its competitors in discounting [to sustain sales],” Yamamoto said. The company needs to strengthen its services in overseas markets, shifting from a product-focused approach, he said.
The company had said earlier it was counting on shipments in Europe and other overseas markets to account for more than half of total PC sales in the current fiscal year.
Shares in Fujitsu, a supplier to Samsung Electronics Co, fell 0.8 percent to ￥360 at the close of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The stock has declined 10 percent this year, compared with a 23 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
Dell Inc, the world’s third-largest PC maker, said on Dec. 12 it is seeing strong demand for computers and tablets running Windows 8.
Interest in the operating system is “quite high,” Dell chief executive officer Michael Dell said at a conference in Austin, Texas.
Microsoft plans to overhaul how it develops its flagship Windows operating system in a strategic shift aimed at keeping pace with nimbler rivals Apple and Google, people familiar with the matter said last month.
Microsoft aims to upgrade the software more frequently, about once a year, rather than every two or three years as it has done in the past, the people said. The world’s largest software maker has floundered as personal computers, where it has long dominated, have lost ground to the smartphones and tablets championed by Apple and Google.
Fujitsu, the maker of the K supercomputer, will decide on a restructuring plan for its unprofitable chip business by March 31 next year, Yamamoto said, declining to provide details. The company is trying to rely more on other firms to make its chips instead of running its own chip-fabrication plants.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS