★ PEOPLES ★ AMSTRAD: A YEN TO RAISE PRICES (POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY) ★ |
| Amstrad: a Yen to raise prices (Popular Computing Weekly) |
AMSTRAD has celebrated its 300,000th PC order with a price increase averaging 12 per cent on the range. The new prices range from £528 for the monochrome single floppy machine to £ 1.258 for the colour machine with 20Mb hard disc. The price rises technically don't come into effect until January, but as orders placed now won't be delivered until after that it's unlikely that anybody ordering now will be able to get a machine at the old price. Amstrad puts the price rises partially down to the strength of the Yen, which has forced the cost of its Japanese components up by 20 per cent. Prices of the other Amstrad machines have not been increased, however. A spokesman suggested that this was because the components were different. Japanese sourced components are. however, unlikely to make up much of the total production cost of the machines, as Amstrad manufactures in Korea and uses components from a variety of countries in all its machines. The main Japanese input in the PC will, therefore, be the more complex of the chips, and possibly some disc drives. The lower tech circuitry and raw materials will generally come from countries like Taiwan, Korea and Malaysia. Demand was. however, another factor in the decision to raise prices. Advance orders have already exceeded Amstrad's predictions for sales this year, but have been more heavily loaded towards the hard disc machines than the company expected, and have almost certainly harmed sales of the PCWs. The price rise, therefore, has the effect of taking some of the heat off the PCW. Popular Computing Weekly (1986-11)
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