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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc.
AAPL 273.08-0.3%1:22 PM EST

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To: Phillip C. Lee who wrote (17896)9/13/1998 1:00:00 AM
From: Eric Yang  Read Replies (2) of 213177
 
Phil, been kind of busy in the last week, so I haven't posted here lately. Just came back from volunteering for the Apple Demo Day at CompUSA. Sold a few iMacs and a G3 MT today it was pretty fun.

Anyway about that CBS MarketWatch article...
cbs.marketwatch.com
I think the numbers mentioned in that article is WAY OFF. I find the comment in that article about shipping (or selling) 360K iMacs in by the end of August (in 16 days) inconsistent with everything I've heard from various sources. It is much too high. I'd be one of the happiest person on earth if that were true but to be honest I don't think Rebecca has her facts straight. I'm not even sure if she realizes that Q4 ends on Sept 26 and not Sept 30th as her article seems to imply. 360K iMacs in Q4 is within reasonable range but 360K iMacs in August along is not. I'll be more than happy to eat my word if I'm wrong.

The article states "[iMac's record-setting August sales volume] estimated at 360,000 by industry sources" I wonder what "sources" she was referring to and how reliable it is. The article went on to state that the 360K in August estimate was "a number an Apple spokesperson deemed "about right" That's something I find hard to believe as well. So far Apple has been pretty tight lipped about actual unit ship for the iMac. It's very uncharacteristic of Apple to allow its spokesperson to comment on iMac sales figure rather than releasing the info in a formal press release.

As you know Lou Mazzucchelli's estimate for iMac this quarter is about 250K. My guess is around 320K. At this point it's really hard to tell how many will actually get shipped since this is a brand new product. I think it's dangerous to assume that iMac unit shipment for the quarter would come in at 600K-700K range simply because of estimates from unknown source in this CBS MarketWatch article. Let's not forget that CBS MarketWatch also published those two Apple bashing articles from "Zapman" last month.

All the indicators suggests that iMac is selling well and production has ramped up quite smoothly; however I think the estimate of 600-700K iMacs in Q4 is way out of range. The only reason I'm pointing this out is because I don't want AAPL investors to build up unrealistic expectations and end up being disappointed. We would only be hurting ourselves. Again, I'd be more than happy to eat my word if I'm wrong.

Eric
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