Domestic shipments of personal computers hit a record-high 7.54 million units in fiscal 1998, up 10 percent from the previous year, an industry association said Wednesday.

Shipments in the January-March period, the fourth quarter of fiscal 1998, totaled 2.42 million units, up 28 percent from the same period of the previous year, the Japan Electronic Industry Development Association said.

The figure marks the second consecutive quarter of double-digit increase.

Encouraged by the surprise news amid the continuing economic slump, JEIDA revised an earlier prediction for fiscal 1999 upward from 7.8 million to 8 million units.

The industry group attributed the shipment recovery in fiscal 1998 to growing sales of consumer PCs since summer and increasing demand for compact desktop PCs and those with liquid-crystal displays.

Shipments of home computers grew about 50 percent in fiscal 1998, bringing the shipment ratio of corporate-use PCs to consumers-use PCs from 74:26 in fiscal 1997 to 65:35 in 1998, association officials said.

JEIDA also pointed out that sales of corporate-use PCs have increased since the beginning of the year.

Total sales in terms of value meanwhile decreased 1 percent to 1.63 trillion yen in fiscal 1998 from the previous year, with the average PC price decreasing to 217,000 yen.

But computer production costs also are decreasing, and the cost structure of PC makers generally is improving despite the price fall, an association official said.

The survey is based on voluntary data submission of 20 major PC makers, including NEC Corp., Toshiba Corp., Apple Computer Japan Inc. and IBM Japan Co.