South African consumers are switching from buying desktop computers to gaming consoles, while laptops appear to be holding their own, say retailers and analysts.
They say consumers are putting their normal desktop PC purchase decisions on hold this month as they await the launch of Microsoft's Vista operating system, due 30 January. They are also waiting for the 64-bit chip set type boxes to come on stream and fall in price.
However, consumer spending is still expected to boom, especially for consoles such as Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox, with the recent four consecutive interest rate hikes having little impact.
Riaan Swart, MD of Cape Town-based Chaos Computers, says people are still spending. However, the unavailability of Vista, the hike in international prices of various PC components such as memory and hard drives, and the fall in stock of low-end processors have added 10% to the overall price of a cheap PC, he adds.
"A basic PC box set, without software, with a low-end processor, now retails for about R2 999 compared to around R1 899 a year ago," he says.
Swart says there also seems to be a general trend for consumers to buy items that the whole family can play, such as PlayStations.
Out of fashion?
Another retailer, who asked not to be named, says there is also a preliminary trend for people to buy items such as LCD TV screens and avoid the specific items that were fashion accessories of a year ago.
"Portable music players, such as iPods, I don't think are the thing right now. I don't have specific numbers yet, but these seem to be on the decrease," he says.
Analysts say the trends show laptop computers are still a favourite among shoppers and gaming consoles are making an impact.
BMI-TechKnowledge analyst Hannes Fourie says laptop computers in the R3 999 to R7 000 price range appear to be selling well - a trend that extends from last year.
Fenzil Shah, an analyst with retail research firm GFK, says PlayStations and Xboxes have been big hits following the launch of the two products and the publicity surrounding them.
"It makes sense for consumers to avoid PCs because of the unavailability of 64-bit processors," he says.
Another GFK analyst, Mohammed Dhoodhat, says there has also been a consumer trend towards high-end laptops and multimedia centres.
"However, we still have to see if that will continue throughout this period," he says.
Share
