The US market in 1989 was so weak that for the first time ever, the 20 largest US computer companies did more business overseas than at home, Gartner Group estimates. The Stamford, Connecticut research company says that sales abroad by the 20 largest firms – which produce 70% of US computer hardware – increased to 50.1% of their total from 48.4% in 1988. Domestic sales by the 20 largest computer manufacturers rose only 3.5% in 1989 after increasing 5.9% in 1988 and 5.8% in 1987. Their sales to the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, slowed to a 12.7% growth rate from 25.1% in 1988; European sales growth slowed to 9.5%, the first time since 1982 that their growth in Europe has been under 10%. Of IBM, Gartner says that IBM’s mainframe market share in the top 100 companies was 74.2%, up from 73.1% in 1988, and that its personal computer share grew to 36% from 35.9% – but it had been 50% in 1985, and the company lost market share in several areas, including software and peripherals.