Commenting on its 14% dip in fourth quarter net profit in a year when it just failed to shoot through the $3,000m sales barrier (figures, page five), Compaq Computer Corp cites a slowdown in the US market – US sales increased 24% where worldwide sales rose 39% – and an increased level of expenditure in introducing the Systempro line of servers: European and international sales rose 62% to account for 46% of turnover, but the company was hampered by its inability to meet demand for its LTE and LTE/286 notebook computers, although it hopes to catch up with demand in the second quarter of this year.
