Windows 8未能取悅美國消費者,銷售遇冷

aWindows 8 hasn't delivered any "pop" to US consumer sales of PCs in its first month, with sales falling by 21% compred to the same period in 2011, according to NPD Group, which monitors US retail sales.

Windows 8在它第一個月並沒有給美國的個人電腦銷售帶來任何“賣點”，與2011年同期相比銷售額下降了21%，根據監測美國零售業的NPD集團。

Laptop sales fell by 24%, while desktop sales fell by 9%, said NPD, continuing a trend in the US where PC sales have been dropping through the year compared to 2011.

筆記本電腦的銷量下降了24%，而臺式電腦的銷量下降了9%，相比2011年延續了在美國個人電腦銷量下降的趨勢，NPD說。

The report comes days after the chief financial officer of Asus, one of the world's five biggest PC makers, said that "demand for Windows 8 is not that good right now", after its executives had expressed doubts about how the new OS might be received by consumers.

在高管表達了對新操作系統如何將被消費者接受的懷疑之後，世界五大個人電腦製造商之一的華碩首席財務官說：“對Windows 8的需求現在不那麼樂觀”，不久該報告出來了。

Of further concern for Microsoft, NPD found that consumer sales of Windows 8 tablets were "almost nonexistent", representing less than 1% of Windows 8 device sales through the channels it monitors. But Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis, said there was one bright spot: sales of Windows 8 laptops with touchscreens made up 6% of sales.

進一步關注微軟，NPD發現Windows 8平板電腦的銷售“幾乎不存在”，代表了不到1%的Windows 8設備銷售通過它監視的渠道。但斯蒂芬•貝克，NPD行業分析的副總裁，說有一個亮點：Windows 8帶觸摸屏的筆記本銷售佔了6%的銷售額。

NPD's report comes just after sources among component makers say that Microsoft has halved orders for its Surface RT device, which uses an ARM rather than Intel chip and runs a special version of Windows 8.

在組件製造商中的來源說微軟已經減半了表面RT裝置的訂單，用的是ARM而不是英特爾的芯片並用來運行特殊版本的Windows 8之後，NPD的報告出來了。

A comparison with the same period in 2009, when Windows 7 was also just four weeks old, showed far greater penetration of the new OS: then, 83% of Windows devices sold had the newest version. This year, the figure is 58%.

與2009年同期相比，當Windows 7還只是四個禮拜大的時候就顯示了新操作系統更大的滲透力：然後，售出的Windows裝置中有83%有了最新的版本。今年，這個數字是58%。

That implies that PC vendors and retailers this year still had substantial amounts of inventory with Windows 7 even when Windows 8 was launched – and that this backlog has to be cleared before Windows 8 sales could start in earnest.

這意味着即使當Windows 8推出時個人電腦供應商和零售商今年仍有大量Windows 7庫存，在Windows 8銷售正經開始時積壓必須清除。

That would tally with separate findings from Net Applications, which said that a month after Windows 8's release it constituted about 1% of PC use, compared to 3.6% for Windows 7 after the same period in 2009.

這將符合網絡應用程序的獨立調查結果，說明Windows 8發佈之後的一個月它構成了個人電腦使用的大約1%，相比在2009年同期之後Windows 7的3.6%。

Consumers buy about half of all PC sales in the US, but demand has flattened with the rise of tablets such as Apple's iPad; that has had the effect of diverting consumer spending to other products, and lengthening the life cycle for PCs. Windows 7 came out before the iPad's announcement in January 2010.

在美國消費者購買佔了個人電腦銷售的約一半之多，但隨着蘋果的iPad等平板電腦的興起需求已經飽和，這已經影響着消費者轉移支出到其他產品，並延長了個人電腦的生命週期。2010年1月在iPad聲明之前Windows 7面世。

The weakness in PC sales was amplified by a slow "back to school" period in September and October, said Baker. That's usually a period of strong sales of Windows PCs as secondary students and schools prepare for a fresh academic year, and first-time university students choose computers - very frequently laptops.

個人電腦銷售疲軟被9月和10月緩慢的“返校期”加重，貝克說。隨着中學生和學校爲新學年做準備以及大學生首次選擇電腦——通常是筆記本電腦，這通常是微軟個人電腦銷售的一段強勁期。

But that went slowly, leaving Windows 7 devices with wholesalers and retailers: "The bad back to school period left a lot of inventory in the channel, which had a real impact on the initial sell-through rates for Windows 8," said Baker.

但那進展緩慢，將Windows 7設備留給了批發商和零售商：“糟糕的返校期在渠道中留下了大量庫存，這將真正影響到Windows 8最初的零售利率，”貝克說。

Microsoft's new head of its Windows division, Tami Reller, told analysts earlier this week that 40 million Windows 8 licences had been sold in its first month. That compared to an estimated 60m in the first two months of Windows 7, as calculated by Reuters.

微軟Windows部門的新領導Tami Reller本週早些時候告訴分析師，4000萬Windows 8牌照第一個月已經售出。相比Windows 7在前兩個月估計的6000萬，據路透社計算。

Baker noted that Windows 8 touchscreen laptops with an average price of $867 (£540), accounting for 6% of Windows 8 laptop sales, had helped "re-establish a premium segment to the Windows consumer notebook market."

貝克指出Windows 8的觸摸屏筆記本電腦平均售價867美元(540英鎊)，佔了Windows 8筆記本電腦銷售額的6%，已經幫助“Windows筆記本電腦消費市場重建了一個溢價段。”