Word: hp
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...world doesn't know it. The island's nimble manufacturers produce more than two-thirds of the globe's LCD monitors, nearly three out of four notebook PCs, and four-fifths of PDAs. Yet most of this digital gear is made under contracts with big foreign tech companies like HP, Apple and Dell and is resold to consumers carrying those well-known brand names. No longer...
...wide range of PC gear, limits its branding efforts to PDAs with built-in global-positioning systems. Asustek Computer, which sells notebooks under the Asus name, shuns expensive sports sponsorships and concentrates on advertising in PC specialty magazines to reach a geek audience. "If you compare us with HP and Dell, we still belong to the small potatoes," says Sunny Han, Asustek's marketing director. "We focus on niche marketing, to niche people...
...toward newer, more lucrative markets like portable photo printing. Coming off a strong second quarter in which profits rose 9.3% from a year earlier, the company is laying off workers--1,900 in the second quarter alone--and refocusing its printing business on the increasingly popular color laser jets; HP has 42% of the market. There is also renewed focus on large-scale printing and imaging. HP has new contracts to provide digital presses to companies like Jeppesen, a Boeing division that produces millions of pages of flight manuals annually for numerous airlines...
...HP faces a new challenge. Dell has become a strong competitor in printing, undercutting HP's pricing. Given that imaging and printing account for 70% of HP's profit, the challenge is significant. "Dell is giving away their printers rather than charging for them," says Vyomesh Joshi, head of HP's printer and PC group. "They're trying to buy the business." HP continues to diversify, presenting rear-projection TV, for instance, as an extension of its innovations in printing. No doubt HP is hoping to avoid a race to the bottom. --By Jeremy Caplan
Though the merger did produce significant cost savings, it did not improve HP's strategic position. In consumer PCs, HP is still getting punished by Dell, which just reported record numbers. On the computer- services side, HP is mostly stuck in the maintenance business, where margins are shrinking. Even HP's best performer--the $24.2 billion printer and imaging-products business, which yielded 73% of profits last year--is under pressure. Dell has entered the printer market and already has a 13% share of the U.S. inkjet-printer market...