THE ZX-81 is beginning to take off in the States. An agreement between Sinclair Research and the American Express credit card company has resulted in a flood of orders for the machine.
The credit card company sent a direct mail offer to its two million card-holders in the U.S. at the end of May. In what Sinclair Research calls “a very positive response”, 2,000 orders were received by noon the day following the offer. In the first three weeks more than 25,000 orders were sent to American Express.
Total sales from the offer have been forecast at 50.000 units and it is thought that may be a conservative estimate.
The offer was agreed between American Express and Sinclair Research following a successful test marketing for the ZX-81 at the end of last year. The test market had been requested by the credit card company.
The deal does not affect the plans by Timex to market its enhanced version of the ZX-81, the Timex Sinclair 1000, which has a 2K RAM instead of the normal 1K.
That will not be on sale until this month and Sinclair Research in the U.S. is continuing to sell the ZX-81 until the Timex sales reach a certain level.
Sales of the ZX-81 were 15,000 a month in the U.S. in the early part of the year and it is estimated that 435,000 have been sold throughout the world.
Sales in Britain declined in April but are said to have recovered in May. The machine is being promoted in new markets. Sales are going well in France and reasonably well in Germany and increasing in other markets.