However, we also expect PC prices to stabilize after 20 years of an 8% annual decline.
Manufacturers slashed PC prices, eliminating margins for middlemen like Merisel (nasdaq: MSEL - news - people ).
"As PC prices drop, most people tend to believe margins for makers like Acer will be increasingly squeezed, " says the analyst.
Investors will be watching closely for any signs of a slowdown in PC sales or a drop in average PC prices for HP.
As the Financial Times reports, Acer today said it will boost PC prices to cover the higher costs it now faces for disk drives.
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The number of Netizens, in America and elsewhere, is set to rocket still further as PC prices fall and peer pressure to get online rises.
But PC prices dropped, and the economics of network computing collapsed.
Personal computer maker Hewlett-Packard may be trying to branch out into software and services, but it still has to contend with falling PC prices, weak demand and fierce competition in the legacy business that still dominates its profits and revenues.
Lighter and cheaper tablets push down prices for PC, putting pressure on Windows pricing.
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All these explain why the world's PC makers are cutting prices like crazy to retain market share.
Times have been tough for the PC industry, as falling prices, weak demand and high competition have already forced Lenovo Group into a loss, while Dell has found that IT spending by large companies is weak.
That battle has made it easier for the PC makers to join in, which in turn is driving down the prices these firms are prepared to pay for other PC components such as memory chips, modems and disk drives.
Steam is a wildly successful digital download service, a one-stop shop for the best PC games, sometimes at steep discount prices.
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One result of the lower prices: more memory per PC.
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The PC industry may be plagued by falling prices, shrinking profit margins and looming competition from "Internet appliances" such as Internet-enabled cellphones and TVs, but Dell Computer's first quarter earnings and revenues rose 45% and 41% respectively.
Intel looks to grow its revenues aided by expected growth in PC shipments and modest growth in average selling prices.
Marc Kaufmann, the previous manager of the Select Electronics fund thought that the sinking memory prices of 1996 presaged a rocket PC market.
Global market demand for large size LCD panels was flat with shipments rising just 1 percent quarter-on-quarter to 179 million units, while average sales prices of panels fell across the notebook PC, monitor and TV panel segments.
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The Internet may not be about to take over, but at these prices, it's hard to imagine how a PC vendor can be a sales leader without an Internet distribution strategy.
Total PC dollar sales actually rose 1% from a year ago, as average prices increased 7%, reflecting the weakness in netbooks.
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Heavily reduced prices for the soon-to-be axed line of tablets encouraged shoppers, PC World reports.
Once concerned about what ARM-like prices would do to its business model, Intel appears to have seen the Post-PC light: Traditional PCs will continue to make technical progress, but the go-go days of ever-increasing volumes are gone.
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Digital cameras will remain more expensive than PC cameras, but future cameras will have more features and offer better image quality for ever-lower prices, the usual trend in electronics.
Windows Pricing for PC Makers increased from 2005 to 2007 due to an increasing mix of premium Windows editions that sell for higher prices.
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He also noted that chip factory utilization rates have declined to slightly below-seasonal levels, and that contract prices for both DRAM and NAND memory chips are expected to drop in Q3, due to weak PC and smartphone demand.
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