James Delahunty
15 Apr 2010 17:27
Toshiba Corp. got a boost from surging PC sales in the United States in the first quarter of the year, jumping 50 percent compared to the same period of 2009. Jeff Barney, general manager of digital products for Toshiba America, said the company sold 1.5 million PC units in the January - March period in the United States thanks to growing consumer demand.
Barney revealed that average selling prices leveled during the quarter after falling for some time. He said he expected 35 percent growth in the U.S. consumer PC market in the coming six months along with single-digit growth from enterprise customers. Toshiba is the fourth largest PC vendor in the United States and the fifth largest globally.
The company is also planning to roll out tablet-style computing devices similar to the iPad later in the year. Barney said the plan was to launch "slate" PCs this year running either Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, or Google's mobile Android OS.
"We definitely see a place for the slate, we see there's a market there. It'll be expansive like netbooks, it won't be cannibalistic," he said. He added that a Windows version of the tablet would be priced higher than Android, but that Android users could tap thousands of programs available in the Android Market.