Domestic shipments of mainframe computers totaled 190.7 billion yen in value in the first half to Sept. 30, down 20 percent from a year earlier, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association said Monday.
Association officials attributed the decline to increased mergers and integration of computer systems in the financial sector.
Financial institutions -- the second-largest buyer of mainframe computers in the first half of 2001 -- slipped to fourth behind the national government, local governments and service companies.
Shipments of servers and other midrange computers declined 22.3 percent to 301 billion yen, thanks largely to sluggish corporate capital spending, the association said.