Hi Rudedog,
This is from DELL's press release.
"Quarterly revenue from Europe, the Middle East and Africa increased 10 percent year-over-year, led in part by solid growth in sales to small-business customers across the region, including in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Dell ranked No. 2 in terms of regional market share, up from the No. 4 a year ago and No. 3 in Q1, as its European unit volumes rose slightly in a market where growth was below industry expectations. In the meantime, the company's focus on costs and margins resulted in a 24-percent sequential increase in operating income.
Company sales in Asia-Pacific, including Japan, rose 48 percent, including a 93-percent increase in revenue from enterprise products. In China, sales were up 86 percent year-over-year."
The fact that DELL Europe rose from number 4 to number 2 in small business tells me they are growing faster than the competition regardless of the method they are using to sell computers. In Asia and China they can still display those big growth numbers since the actual % is so small.
I'm hard pressed to believe DELL will ever use a different model for Europe(at least not publicly); that would be a sort of disqualification of the Direct Way!
Saturation in the US makes DELL rely more on product cycles, and new products, and here new initiative by IBM and HP in legacy free, USB machines might look attractive to many companies.
My frustration is very much at the stock price vs. company growth. I know lots compare DELL's stock performance to SUNW's, and while I try not to fall into that trap, it is wholly unfair that SUNW should command such a high PE when all the data I can find shows SUNW's growth rate is just now approaching what DELL's is decelerating to. I don't care about how DELL makes their numbers; they can sell only one configuration of only one PC-if they sell enough to maintain 30%, that still is 30% growth. They shouldn't need to be thought of as a turnaround story with that type of revenue growth.
But like you state, we will be range bound, and now the range has been set so much lower. Can't blame that on shorts, or a bear NASDAQ/DOW market.
kaka |
