Hewlett-Packard secures dominant market position after merger with Compaq

About 18% of the Polish IT market is currently controlled by Hewlett-Packard Polska after its merger with Compaq. "The merger is a good foundation in order for HP to become the world's largest and best company," said Andrzej Dopierala, the head of HP Polska, who hopes to finalize the merger within the next few months. The joint revenues of HP and Compaq in Poland reached zl. 2 billion in 2001, while their main rival, Prokom has a turnover less than half that. HP is the market leader in terms of sales of desktop c omputers, servers and printers, and stands in the second place, after Toshiba, in terms of laptop sales. This was confirmed by 2002 first quarter results, when the joint companies managed to sell 19,300 computers. The following three places were taken by Polish producers, that is NTT, with 12,400 units sold, JTT with 11,000 and Optimus, which sold around 10,000 units of computer equipment. "Nowhere in the world do we have such a large market share as in Poland. Therefore we want to take part in all IT pr ojects, if not as the main contractor, then as a subcontractor," said Dopierala. (Parkiet, p. 4) A.K.