UK Company Blames Poor Profits on Vista Sales

A UK retailer, PC World, reported that slower Vista related sales impacted the groupis profits by ?20M, according to C|Net UK on Thursday.

The retailer reported a 0.6 percent drop in its profit margin in the 24 weeks prior to October 13th. The cause was reported by the group to be: "largely driven by slower Vista-related hardware sales and a changing sales mix in computing."

"PC World delivered good sales performance against a tough prior-year comparative in the back-to-school period," said the PC Worldis chairman, John Collins. "The reduction in laptop stocks that arose out of disappointing sales of Vista-related products and a changing sales mix have reduced gross margins by around 2 percent in the computing division, impacting group profits by around 20 million pounds in the first half. Stocks are now at normal levels and we expect to recover some of the lost margin through the second half."

Mr. Collins did not elaborate on what "changing sales mix" meant.