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Fujitsu to miss sales target due to 'weak' Windows 8 demand

Company's president blames soft Windows 8 demand for slumping sales, according to a report, echoing recent comments from the president of Fujitsu competitor Acer.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
Brooke Crothers
Fujitsu's Stylistic Q702 Windows 8 hybrid tablet-laptop. Fujitsu's president says Windows 8 PC sales are lacking.
Fujitsu's Stylistic Q702 Windows 8 hybrid tablet-laptop. Fujitsu's president says Windows 8 PC sales are lacking. Fujitsu

Fujitsu's president cited "weak" Windows 8 demand for slumping sales, according to a Tokyo-based Bloomberg report, echoing recent comments from Acer's president.

Japan's biggest IT services company said it will miss its annual shipment target for personal computers amid sluggish demand for Windows 8, according to Bloomberg. Fujitsu President Masami Yamamoto was speaking to reporters in Tokyo on Thursday.

PC shipments for the fiscal year ending in March are expected to fall short of an October estimate of 7 million units, he said.

Acer president Jim Wong, while not citing sales estimates, expressed similar sentiment in an interview with Digitimes this week.

Because of the learning curve for touch, Windows 8 will not be adopted quickly, he said, adding that the new Windows 8 interface could "dramatically delay adoption by consumers."

These dour comments come after the NPD Group said in November that sales of Windows devices have fallen 21 percent versus the same period last year.

Not all is doom and gloom, however. At least not in the U.S. Analysts have told CNET that demand for touch-screen Windows 8 PCs is strong in the U.S.

Rhoda Alexander, an analyst at IHS iSuppli, told CNET earlier this month that some vendors can't keep touch-screen PCs on the shelf.