The coming months don't look rosy. It is expected that the selling price of PCs will drop during the early months of 2001 as PC makers unload a backlog of holiday inventory estimated to be nearly twice normal levels. Add this high inventory level to a soft US economy, hesitant consumers, and businesses reluctant to upgrade their equipment, and we may see PC makers continue to cry. Consumers, however, were spending their money. Other high-tech gadgets such as handhelds and MP3 players enjoyed brisk sales.
People seem to be buying accessories for PCs instead of PCs.
Computer peripherals, those devices that connect to computers like printers and scanners, remained popular. PC sales have also been heavily infiltrated by consumer electronic products such as phones, TVs, and personal digital assistants. To reinforce the theory that sales activity continued but shifted away from PCs, just look at chip sales. Communications drove the market for semiconductor chips. Wireless phones and handheld devices along with the ongoing build-out of the Internet infrastructure is credited with the increase in sales.