Marc
Brisk! That's how the weather and the sales are in Switzerland.
Three local vendors have sold out of their machines (one had 8 on hand last Thursday) in less than a week. The prices for the G3 are fairly high here, but the bundles with monitors and extra memory which the resellers are putting together are excellent. G3 powerbooks, however, are on the price scale of the 20th Anniversary mac and are really not leaving the store.
Asking vendors about sales evokes laughter. One salesperson noted that he could not have a demo running for me to view since it had been sold before it had even come out of the box.
If sales abroad can pick up a bit, this quarter may not be as bad as it is being forcasted. The biggest problem with the European market is the US media which is so pro-Intel. People here believe what they are reading and it all says that Intel (merced-especially) is where anything computer oriented is headed. Also, I think that investment from the European market sector into US stocks in general (such as AAPL) is taking a beating due to fluctuations in the exchange rates. The past two months have seen the Swiss franc in a US$.10 swing due to surging US economic news and the Asia crisis.
As for market share, I would say that APPL is being too conservative about its nitch design market here and that it really needs to get some advertising in front of consumers. We are not doing the THINK DIFFERENT thing yet.
Small AAPL resellers are the tradition here, but the consumer tendency is to go toward the emerging mega-store fronts rather than the mom and pop places. None of the chains here are even showing Mac products.
With that in mind, I think the European quarter will be excellent, but then the second quarter of 98 will see a steep drop off with no consumer expansion. On the upside, I think that AAPL is quite undervalued on the market and that by Q2 we will see a solid profit from the Americans which will help to generate more exposure here through the media.
Good luck
Doug |
