Jim, I had an excellent conversation with John Brown of IDC today. He is the analyst that prepares and issues the quarterly PC report. Incidentally, he actually worked at DELL before coming to IDC.
He confirmed that DELL had a slow January. In previous posts I estimated that DELL's actual January was just under 600m units. My latest note to John Rosser[below] has my earnings number between 17 and 18 cents reflecting 2.6 million units and a 4% ASP drop from last quarter.
"Anyway, on the IDC front their research is reported strictly on a calendar quarterly basis. That is, Q1 refers to the January to March period. And, this includes DELL for the same January to March period. They have to do it this way otherwise the market share comparisons would be meaningless.
In my calculations for DELL's Q1 - i.e., February to April I have revised my estimate to 2.60 million units. This is based on the simple fact that the April period will be much higher than the January period - probably by as much as 350,000 units. However, as I stated before, I expect DELL management to manage these earnings and push excess unit volume into May.
I am now looking for 17.6 cents earnings [$483 million after tax]."
At this time the consensus is 16 cents and the whisper number is 17 cents. Presumably, we'll experience a run-up before earnings. Hopefully, we'll be able to see $50 before earnings. But unless DELL achieves 18 cents or higher the $50 won't be maintained after the report.
Regards, Gabriel
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