China's leading personal computer manufacture, Legend Group, started Thursday to chop prices of its Soleil notebooks by about 1,000 yuan (US$121), the Beijing Morning Post reported.

The largest cut is a 15 percent slash from 11,588 yuan to 9,999 yuan, while prices of two Pentium IV products are marked down to 8,999 yuan and 7,900 yuan.

The move is expected to popularize the high-end PC products and expand Legend's market share of notebooks, the company said.

All the Soleil products involved, also called Zhaoyang in Chinese, which are targeted for commercial users, use the Intel Centrino mobile technology.

Due to its leading position in the sector, market analysts expect Legend's price cut on the Centrino products to spark a wider price competition among domestic notebook makers.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2003)