Pretoria-based notebook and accessories retailer, The Notebook Company (www.notebook.co.za), has announced that its turnover for the year ended February 2005 is R15.9 million, representing a 10% year-on-year increase since the year ended February 2002.
Christopher Riley, CEO of The Notebook Company, said the strong rand had caused "pricing pressures".
"While we did not reach our target this year due to the strong rand, which resulted in the price of laptops coming down, we actually sold 15% more in unit terms. We remain bullish for the coming financial year and are certainly on track to improve our turnover by at least 10%. What we are seeing, however," he said, "is that the short-term rental market is still booming. The ability to write off rental costs immediately in an economy where change is daily, lets a lot of our corporate clients opt for this route. This means they optimise their investments. We don`t see this trend changing in the near future and it has a marked impact on our profit margins, which, this year, was one of the best we have witnessed in the past 10 years."
Interestingly, the company also said that sales of Fujitsu Siemens brand name laptops are "soaring". "Fujitsu Siemens is making a real play for the local laptop market. They recently introduced a Pentium 4 laptop for under R6 000, which has proven very popular. Two years ago we did not sell Fujitsu Siemens laptops - now they account for 30% of our sales," said Riley.
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