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Low-priced laptops fuel the prime season
14/12/2004 17:01

Wim Wu / Shanghai Daily News

Although the year-end is considered the prime time for the laptop purchases, price cuts are creating interest in the local laptop market, with the average price below 10 thousand yuan in the last two months, the Shanghai Morning Post reported.
According to PC-Online, the prices of both foreign and domestic laptops have declined from 10 percent to 20 percent, with one-third selling at 7,000 to 8,000 yuan, and one Chinese-brand notebook PC at only 4,999 yuan.

The decline in prices in the laptop market is attributed to the current price adjustments of CPUs and LCDs, which account for around 30 percent of the overall cost, an industry analyst noted. Secondly, considering the fierce competition in the lower end of the market, most traders are eager to provide the low-priced laptops, so that a price war is more easily triggered. Additionally, since Christmas is coming soon, more bargains are being offered to attract more consumers. 
However, the price cuts have not been warmly received by laptop consumers. "We only expect a few sales each month," a distributor said sadly. "The majority of the consumers are taking a wait-and-see attitude and have doubts about the quality of the products and the after-sale service for the cheaper laptops.