Around the Net

H-P's Price-Slashing Boosts Market Share

A $298 laptop computer that Hewlett-Packard has been selling at Wal-Mart to boost back-to-school sales quickly sold out twice, Justin Scheck reports, underscoring the company's success in grabbing market share by undercutting it rivals during the financial -- and technology sales -- slump. The closest Dell product costs $398.

And this month H-P introduced PCs for the holiday season at lower prices than earlier offerings. "Our goal is profitable growth," says Todd Bradley, the chief of H-P's PC division. To achieve that, he says, H-P is improving "the efficiency of our operations" and also investing in new product innovations, manufacturing, and hiring new salespeople. It's also working more closely with retailers to forecast demand, which allows it to save on costs by ordering in advance.

H-P's market share was nearly 20% of global PC shipments in the second quarter, up from 18.5% a year earlier, according to IDC. In the same period, Dell's share fell by about two percentage points to 13.7%.

advertisement

advertisement

Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »

Next story loading loading..