Hitachi will drop the consumer PC market and focus on other business sectors
Computer maker Hitachi officially exited the personal computer (PC) market, claiming the company will offer computers specifically for the broadcasting industry, a growing market.
Hitachi struggled against global powerhouses Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo in Japan, the only market it targeted. The Hitachi Prius line of PCs will continue to be sold until the end of the shopping season before Hitachi stops marketing the products.
The company’s Toyokawa factory will shift towards manufacturing server-based products for corporations. Hitachi began contracting other PC manufacturers to HP earlier in 2007. The PC sector accounted for only $608 million in revenue for the company - less than 1 percent of its total revenue.
According to numbers compiled by MM Research Institute, Hitachi managed to ship 580,000 PCs in Japan in one year. The lackluster numbers put Hitachi in eighth position behind competitors such as NEC, Dell, Toshiba and Fujitsu. Japanese manufacturer NEC also is suffering in the global PC market due to Dell, HP and Lenovo.
Hitachi will continue to diversify with products in other markets ranging from rice cookers to nuclear power. The Financial Times published an article stating Hitachi may sell its hard drive unit, which recently introduced the most energy efficient desktop hard drives in the world.
|