It has been reported that HP and Dell now regard Lenovo their top rival after it acquired IBM's PC department on December 8.

On December 27, industry insiders said that Dell is preparing to introduce a notebook PC at a price under 6,999 yuan (US$843) in January.

This followed HP bringing the price of its Compaq Presario M2000 notebook PC down to 6,999 yuan on December 22, a new price low for them in China. The previous record was 8,000 yuan (US$964).

Zhang Yongli, manager of HP's mobile PC division, said the release of their new notebook is one month ahead of schedule.

A senior Dell manager said Intel had fully backed their price slash, according to Beijing media.

"Intel's move can only be explained by it not wanting to see a powerful Lenovo," commented an industry analyzer.

Although Toshiba has no new promotions, it has begun to move its production line from the Philippines to Hangzhou City in eastern China to further reduce production costs, possibly to enable participation in a price war, it was reported.

The price cuts were triggered by two domestic PC makers, Founder and Lenovo, who both lowered notebook prices to 6,999 yuan at the end of the year.

Lenovo-IBM's share of the domestic PC market is now 35 percent, larger even than the 32.2 percent combined share of Dell, HP and Toshiba.

(China.org.cn by Wang Zhiyong January 2, 2005)