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Positivo steers results back to black

Brazil's biggest PC manufacturer reverts 2013 loss - but quarterly results have been hit by the World Cup and the presidential elections
Written by Angelica Mari, Contributing Writer

Brazil's biggest PC maker Positivo has reported a turnaround in its third quarter results in relation to last year's numbers despite the slowdown in sales prompted by the World Cup and this year's general elections.

Net income for the period reached R$13,5m ($5.3m), compared to the R$18,9m ($7.4m) loss from the same quarter last year. The company's financial performance was helped by smartphone sales, which totaled 53,8 million units, a 437 percent increase on the third quarter last year.

But PC sales didn't do so well, with a 3 percent decline in volume in comparison to Q3 2013 and some 665,600 units - PC and tablets - sold during the period.

A sluggish first half of 2014 was expected, since Brazilian consumers prioritized TVs over computers around the time of the World Cup, Positivo said in a statement. The firm also mentioned that its corporate sales have been hit as organizations waited for the election results before making investment decisions, causing a 23.2 percent drop in B2B sales.

According to the Brazilian PC maker, there has been sales drop also in the public sector, caused by mandatory interruptions in the deliveries of certain projects due to the elections. However, sales to individuals recovered since the end of the World Cup and helped offset the impact seen in government projects.

Total revenue at Positivo for the third quarter reached R$ 534,3m ($210m), down 3.2 percent year on year.

Back in September, analyst IDC predicted that PC sales in Brazil will see an overall drop of 24 percent in 2014 — the sharpest decline to date and a lot worse than the 10 percent decline it had previously predicted for the country in December last year.

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