NEC Corp’s once overwhelmingly dominant share of the Japanese market plunged to 32% in 1996 according to Dataquest Japan KK, which gave it 40% in 1995. Fujitsu Ltd strengthened its second place with 21.9%, up from 18.3%, IBM Japan Ltd took 11.9%, up from 9.9%, Apple Computer Inc slipped to 11.0% from 14.2%, Toshiba Corp jumped to 6.8% from 3.8% and Hitachi Ltd took 5.4% of the market. But Compaq Computer Corp and Dell Computer Corp, which created the Japanese personal computer market in its current form by plunging in with rock-bottom prices in 1993, seem to have been hoist with their own petards as Japanese manufacturers copied their model. Dataquest puts the 1996 market at 7.57 million machines worth $15.6bn, a rise of 33% in units, 43% by value.
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