The interests and the desires of consumers were uppermost in attendees’ minds as the 23rd annual Hambrecht & Quist Technology Conference got under way in San Francisco on Monday: Todd Bakar, a Hambrecht & Quist managing director and analyst, said the consumer market for personal computers is growing probably at more than twice the rate of the corporate market – the consumer has clearly become the driving force for PC industry sales, he said – personal computer demand is so strong that supply has emerged as a possible limiting factor in sales, he averred, noting that shortages of dynamic and static memory chips, high capacity disk drives, monitors, and in some cases, microprocessors, are limiting companies’ ability to ship product.
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Right now, we see no indication that the usual summer slowdown in demand will occur in technology, Bruce Lupatkin, Director of Research at Hambrecht & Quist told the conference, which has been extended to four days this year: In terms of consumer demand, everyday examples such as Internet and expanding use of computers in schools drive home the point that the consumer will increasingly influence how the technology industry thinks and acts, he said; at the same time, changes in how and where people work in the corporate environment have created new, dynamic markets for the technology which makes this new workplace possible, he said.
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Silicon Graphics Inc looks set to continue revenue growth in the low 40% range until the end of its financial year next month and predicts turnover of $2,200m, Gary Lauer, senior vice-president, told the Hambrecht & Quist conference: but he added that the company’s target is growth in the low 50% range and that Silicon Graphics was on target; in the March quarter, gross margins reached 53.6% of net sales, up from 52.4% in the previous quarter and revenues jumped 47%; Lauer said the aim was to draw one third of overall revenues from the Pacific region, one-third from Europe and one-third from North America.
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Electronic Arts Inc sent its chief financial officer Stan McKee to the Hambrecht & Quist meeting where he told delegates that the company expects 45% to 50% of its revenue to come from sales of CD titles in fiscal year 1996, which ends March 1996: the week before, Larry Probst, chief executive, told Reuters he expected the figure to be 52% to 57%; in fiscal 1995 CD-ROM sales grew to more than $100m, or 21%; more than 80% of the company’s products will be released on CD format in the coming year, including titles for 32-bit machines as well as personal computers said McKee adding that international sales will rise to 40% of total business in 1996, up from 33% now.
