Digital Equipment has taken a hit on the stock market, reporting a net loss of US$433 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 1996. The company blamed slow PC sales in Europe and restructuring charges for the drop, but said Asia Pacific revenues, approximately 10 per cent of its business, were up 21 per cent. According to Dataquest analyst Cherry Velarde, Digital's strategy in the region is to concentrate on the high-margin products for the corporate sector. 'Digital made a decision this year not to play in the consumer market,' she said. 'They do not want to play the numbers game. What they want is to run a business, and except for in the PC area, Digital wants to be in the top three for the region by the year 2000.' Digital is now ranked in the top 10 in the region. The highest growth has been in the PC, Alpha and network products in the emerging markets of India, Korea, China and Asean. It recently refreshed its commercial desktop line with the inclusion of new microprocessors in the Venturis PC range. 'The increasing strength of our working relationship with our software and channel partners has been a key factor contributing to our impressive growth in the last fiscal year,' Bobby Choonavala, president of Digital Asia Pacific, said. 'Digital globally has the strategy, technology, services and partners to meet the emerging high growth application areas in our industry, such as enterprise and high-performance computing, Windows NT and Internet,' he said. Ms Velarde said Digital's high-end products, especially its notebooks, have been well-received in the region. 'They are earning money here,' she said. 'Asia Pacific is not a substantial portion of Digital's business yet, but Dataquest believes they are doing okay because they are fighting it out at the high-end.'
