The economic ennui continues, but there are signs that Asians' lust for hardware is reasserting itself. The quarter was the first in a year in which sales expanded instead of contracted. In addition, the total of PCs shipped, nearly 2.9 million, set a quarterly record for the region. To be sure, in Indonesia, where the devaluation of the rupiah plunged nearly half the population back below the poverty line, computers have slipped out of reach of most households. But Thailand and the Philippines are growing again.
Consumer confidence remains fragile and demand ephemeral.
Fok says at least some of the upturn is being attributed to an explosion of Internet cafes. Some 2,500 Internet cafes opened in the fourth quarter alone, she estimated, providing an unexpected boost in hardware sales and helping to work off excess inventory plugging supply channels since the start of the Big Swoon. If there are industry lessons to take away from the computer industry's brush with stagnation, they are of the children's homily variety. Things could have been worse. China, India and Australia, three countries that dodged economic calamity, registered slower but nevertheless healthy PC sales in 1998.