Compaq does a U-turn on notebook price cut policy

Compaq UK has announced price cuts across its hardware range. The PC vendor has cut 32 per cent off all desktops, notebooks and monitors, and is offering a further 10 per cent reduction on its Deskpro 2000 range.

The price cutting move marks a U-turn on last week?s statement from Compaq that it would not be following the US example when Compaq US cut 27 per cent off the prices of its Armada notebooks.

Compaq is hoping the price cuts will address the problems highlighted in the latest Romtec figures, which show it it losing out in the UK notebook market.

The Romtec report says that Toshiba has 46.3 per cent of the market, Compaq 19.2 per cent and IBM 15.2 per cent, a gain of two per cent.

In the US, Compaq cut prices by nearly 27 per cent on Armada 4100 and LTE 5000 notebooks last Monday, as well as slashing prices on a range of its Deskpro models.

This news was greeted warmly by Compaq?s channel. Martin Clarke, sales director of notebook distributor Lapland UK, said: ?I believe their [Armada] product range was overdue for a price review. The Armada has been a follower not a leader.?

Another dealer, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ?The Armada has got to be priced competitively. For a long time Compaq has been off the ball and it needs to light a fire under its products.?

Clarke also welcomed last Monday?s IBM Thinkpad price cuts, but said Toshiba continued to set the pace on pricing.

Peter Bragg, Thinkpad marketing manager at IBM UK, claimed IBM had taken market share from all the major notebook players in the second half of last year. ?We?ve gained two points, according to the latest Romtec figures,? he said.

Toshiba is likely to cut prices on its notebooks in mid February, but product marketing manager Murray McKerlie said he could not comment on any future cuts.

?We cut prices on 8 January on some models and I expect IBM responded to that last week,? he said. ?There?s no doubt that Compaq felt it was being left behind in the pricing race.?