It is a landmark that won’t mean much outside Japan, where talk of trillions merely makes most peoples’ heads reel, but NEC Corp has the one trillion yen target in sight for its computer business this fiscal year. For the half year to September, the company managed computer revenues of $3,281m, which at the current miserable rate of exchange for the dollar is some over 450 billion yen. In numbers, that translates to sales of six supercomputers, 77 3090 class mainframes, (which are of course Honeywell Bull- rather than IBM-compatible), 32 large mainframes, 106 mid-range machines and 151 small mainframes. It also shipped 24,500 office computers, and is looking for 60,000 for the full year. In the personal computer sector, where NEC leads by a country mile, the company shipped another 350,000 of its PC-9800 family, and with expensive 80386 machines making their mark, looks for a 20% increase in value this year at $2,543m, on a volume increase of just 6%. Now that NEC is a 15% share-holder in Honeywell Bull Inc, its business with both the US company and its French 42.5% shareholder is soaring, up 44% in the half, although growth in the second half is expected to moderate to pro-duce a 25% increase for the full year – for a value of $1,800m. In there are exports of 20 Acos 1000 mainframes – DPS 90s – to Honeywell Bull, with the expectation of 45 for the full year. Bull in France took 19 of these machines, with a target of 45 for the full year, as well as 13 Acos 750s, which it sells as the new DPS 7/1X07s, launched in France at the beginning of last month (CI No 780).
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