(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| NEC to Buy Notebook PCs from Taiwan's FIC
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November 12, 1998 (TOKYO) -- NEC Corp. said it will buy notebook personal
computers from a Taiwan manufacturer in order to make its PC business
profitable.
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This is the first time NEC is purchasing notebook PCs from an outside
supplier. It follows earlier procurement of low-cost desktop PCs from
First International Computer Inc. (FIC) of Taiwan. NEC also will buy
notebooks from FIC.
The company also will use Intel Corp. products. NEC said it also might
sell a notebook PC using Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s K6 chip. A K6
machine was test marketed at selected PC shops in the fall.
NEC had been producing notebook PCs on its own and using Intel products
in its PCs. But it decided it needed to go outside to buy notebook PCs
to become profitable in its global PC business.
NEC's entry-level notebook PCs for the year-end holiday sales campaign
are provided by FIC and manufactured based on design specifications
and a body size set by NEC.
NEC said there are two reasons for its decision to purchase from the
Taiwan maker. FIC offered lower manufacturing costs than does our factory
in Yonezawa, the production base for NEC's notebook PCs, and there is
no difference in quality of the notebook PCs made by Taiwan and Japanese
manufacturers due to the technical improvement of Taiwan makers, said
NEC executive vice president Yoshi Takayama.
The K6-based model came on the market in August 1998. It was produced
and sold by NEC's subsidiary, NEC Personal Systems Ltd., under shop
brands offered by certain PC shops.
This trial concluded with some 1,000 sets being produced and sold in
three areas of Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu. NEC said the launch of
the model was a test marketing to see how PCs with K6 processors would
be accepted in the market."
NEC said it sold the number of sets planned. Many customers who bought
machines with the K6 instead of models with MMX Pentium processors did
so because the latter were in short supply during the summer sales campaign.
The company said it is likely it will market the K6-based machine under
shop brands again starting next year, but not during its year-end sales
campaign.
NEC said it wants to develop sales under shop brands as a new channel
of marketing.
(Nikkei
Personal Computing)
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