According to a report on Spanish microcomputing by Dataquest, Spanish systems sales grew 10% and unit sales 21% during 1990. Overall sales amounted to $2,434m and unit sales increased from $4,615m in 1989 to $5,489m. IBM Corp has the biggest market share with 100,000 units sold and a turnover of $520m, its sales exceeding those of its nearest competitor, Spanish Investronica SA, by more than double. Investronica was fourth in the ranking as regards turnover while Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA – third in number of units sold – reported the second largest turnover. Twelve companies sold more than 10,000 systems: IBM, Investronica, Olivetti, Amstrad Plc, Tandon Corp, Commodore International Ltd, Apple Computer Inc, Fujitsu Ltd, Seiko Epson Co, Compaq Computer Corp, Atari Corp, Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG and Philips Electronics NV. With regard to the type of products sold, XT sales fell by 10% at the end of the year, while at the beginning of 1990, 37% of machines invoiced were XTs. Systems based on the 80286 processor sold the best, particularly in the second and third quarter, although sales lagged in the in the last quarter due to the international situation. AT systems, with a 39% market share, were the minimum configuration requested by users and sales were 9% above the European average for ATs. There has been a significant and increasing acceptance of 80386SX systems, which have benefited like the ATs from the fall in outdated XT sales. The market share enjoyed by 80386 microprocessors increased 4.5% in just six months so they came, in either of the three versions, to make up 20% of sales. The number of 80486 units sold in Spain increased to 0.7% of the total while in other countries growth was only 0.5%, making Spain the number one market for penetration of high range systems. Motorola Inc 68000 family personal computers accounted for 11% of systems distributed, due to a large extent to Apple’s aggressive launching campaign for the Mac Classic and the Mac LC in the last quarter of the year. The ratio is the highest for this type of product in the last three years. Of the systems sold, 86% were for the desktop, 6.4% tower and 7.5% portables. Notebook computers accounted for 0.5%. Toshiba Corp is still the most important laptop manufacturer although companies like Epson, Hewlett-Packard Co, Compaq and Amstrad are also gaining good results in Spain. Nearly 85% of laptops use 80286 and 8088 processors in contrast to most European markets where there is a higher proportion of 80386 sales. Meanwhile, IBM, Amstrad and Apple are making enormous efforts to try and conquer the domestic market with new models. With regard to the PS/1, it is difficult to draw any conclusions until the results for the first quarter of this year come out. This is the first time that Apple, for example, has aimed its distribution strategy at this market and it should be able to channel its sales – via large-scale sellers – during 1991.
Weak distribution
Half of the personal computer sales in Spain are done through distributors, in particular the sale of low range products, while high range products are sold mainly through value-added resellers and manufacturers. The advantage of using manufacturers is that they offer complete solutions for most powerful systems. Hewlett-Packard, for example, has been able to sell its personal computers through its most important value-added resellers thanks to the computer-aided design and manufacture programmes it has developed. IBM, Unisys Corp and other manufacturers have obtained good results with Unix-based products. However, 80% of systems were sold indirectly especially by vendors such as IBM, Tandon, Olivetti and Investronica. Since the personal computer distribution infrastructure has always been very weak in Spain – there are only 100 or so distributors with resources to give quality of service to customers – the major manufacturers have been able to come in for the kill. Thus 1991 will be a critical year for the development of distribution channels: distributors will have to restructure themselves and change
their mentality towards offering good services to the users. Manufacturers must also co-operate with distributors and offer them greater support and services.
