Toshiba reviews PC credit deals

Manufacturer will look again at reseller credit terms as it makes its debut in desktop market

Toshiba will amend its resellers? credit terms as the notebook manufacturer makes its long-awaited debut in the PC market.

Toshiba made its debut in the PC desktop market with the launch of the Equium line for business users, announced on 2 June, starting with a modest range of four models.

Andrew Didcott, desktop sales manager for the PC division in the UK, admitted that the company was looking at reviewing resellers? credit terms but conceded that it was too late to change them before the launch.

He also said Toshiba would increase the level of software margin to resellers for a temporary period to kickstart demand.

Didcott said Toshiba?s move into PCs was necessary because ?the market for portables is not growing enough to take us to where we want to be?. The company launched the Equium in the US in September 1996 .

But Toshiba UK has decided it will not follow its US parent company by entering the retail market. The US company launched Infinia, its consumer range of PCs, in March, but Didcott claimed UK market conditions were not favourable.

Didcott acknowledged that ?a roll-out of thousands of units will take a number of years?. It is expected that mail-order companies will be the first segment of the channel to push Toshiba?s PCs as resellers will wait for the demand to come from corporates before actively pushing the PC range. Toshiba will spend #1.5 million on launching the PC range.

As part of Toshiba?s desktop push, it has set itself an ambitious target of becoming the number five worldwide PC vendor by the end of the year ? it currently stands at number seven ? so that it reaches the number three position by 2000. To avoid harming its existing notebook business Toshiba will introduce eight new models.