Jock- You overlook two important points: (1) Most PC manufacturers get a bigger bump in Q4 (than Dell) due to heavy consumer buying, especially for sub-1000 machines..a category Dell does not compete in....so, on a relative basis, these manufacturers look strong in Q4...but look relatively weaker come Q1 and Q3
(2) Compaq and breathern were still clearing out the channels in Q3, so less was sold into the channel than sold-out...IDC reports sales INTO the channel...therefore, the Q3 numbers (marketshare, total % of units) were skewed in Dell's favor in Q3...so Dell had a larger base to work off of (than usual)..
By far, the most significant numbers (for Dell) are y-o-y unit, profit and earnings growth...although overall unit growth % rate (54%)has slowed a bit, this is offset by the growth in sales of higher margin products (notebooks, workstations, servers)...
You seem to think Niles knows his stuff....If, indeed, what is suspected here is true....that Niles fails to account for around 300m in storage revenues (with FAT margins) in 4Q (mentioned nowhere in his report), and, as a result, he will be .02-.04 below actual earnings, and his 5.2B target will be way too low.......if so, Niles (and his team) has done a pretty lousy job of analysis this quarter, IMO....after all, how could they totally disregard a product line that generated 20-25% margins and 300m in revs....and get unit/rev figures (PC's, etc.) wrong to boot?
If he is right, and Dell reports 5.2B in revs., and .30 or .31 in EPS, I'll be the first to say that we here screwed up, and we can pick up the "growth is slowing" argument in earnest...Don't hold your breath, though....
Come back on Wednesday Jock....I doubt you will... |
