Poor sales of Windows Vista cut DSG profits by £20 million (US$41m)
DSG International, a consumer electronic retailer based in Europe and the parent company of Currys and PC World, warned that poor sales of Windows Vista and its related products have cost it £20 million in lost profits for the first-half.
Sales of the Vista software and the computers running Vista between May and mid-October have been below the retailers expectations.
“Vista just didn’t capture the imagination as much as previous versions of Windows,” Mark Webb, DSG spokesman told Guardian. “Sales volumes have still been good, but we’ve not seen the huge rush that we would have hoped for.”
Kevin O’Byrne, finance director, told FT that the company had overestimated the demand for Vista.
Poor customer demand and high inventory of Vista and its related products have forced PC World stores to cut prices, which resulted to reduce earnings by about 20 million pounds.
However, O’Byrne was confident that the second half will likely cut the loss by £10m as customers rush to buy flat screen TVs, digital SLR cameras and games consoles during the key Christmas trading season.
With 20 million pounds in profit loss, it seems DSG has learned its lesson the hard way. The company is now reviewing its orders for Vista and its related product to determine and implement the needed adjustments.
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October 19th, 2007
I used to work at PC World and can only say I find its management completely incompetent. They agreed to stop selling XP machines to please Microsoft and then some idiot ordered way too many laptops even though customers were still asking for XP or just plain hate Vista and its bloated bugginess. By next year they will be selling 200 pound desktops with 300 pound Vista upgrades??? Some computer industry when the muppets cant see that microsoft has ruined the industry for their own gain.
October 19th, 2007
What do you expect from an IT company run by supermarket and building supplies salespeople? Top heavy , over centralised and incompetent management means DSG is doomed…….All the fraudulent PPI , extended warranties and usurious financing deals wont help a basically badly run company turn things around….