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Technology Stocks : PALM - The rebirth of Palm Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tim McGee who wrote (4188)	3/15/2001 12:21:07 AM
From: Tom R. Clarksburg	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6784

Tim, in answer to your questions: Why did Palm have so many units to ship in Feb? ANSWER: Severe shortages of 2 key components needed to manufacture the PALM Vx. Company stated in last CC that they would have an "ease" of the component shortages in the "February to March" period. (You can hear a recording of the last CC at PALm's website) How light were the first two months? WOW!!! VERY LIGHT!! There was absolutely no PALM Vx inventory during the holiday season. All the major online retailers (ie. Amazon,PC Mall, Microwarehouse etc...) had no PALM Vx and no PALM VIIx for December and the first 2 weeks in January. Inventory of the PALM VIIx became plentiful after January 14th. PALM Vx inventories were "OK" but not "plentiful" at Amazon, Circuit City and OfficeMAX, Office Depot and Staples beginning January 7th. Palm M100, IIIC and IIIxe were plentiful the entire quarter. How has the economy affected purchases of PDAs Not much, All the sales people I speak to at Non-online retailers say that all PALM's are flying off the shelves. I also have been keeping tabs at the onliners and find that all PALM products are selling briskly. In fact out of the 10 online retail inventory managers I surveyed, the average sales of PALM Vx have been 300 units per day, Palm VIIx sells (On average) 150 per day. What was the activity like at the distributor level rather than the retail level?This accounts for a huge portion of I only have a contact at Tech Data, one of Palm's US distributors. She confirmed similar large ship dates of the PALM VIIx from January 12th to February 12th. And Palm Vx ship dates of January 4th to Januray 16th and huge shipments from February 24th to February 28th. By the way, Palm ships its products directly to about 90% of the 55 online retailers they service, But distributors (Tech Data and RM) ship to 100% of all NON-ONLINE retail accounts. What were direct sales? Are companies holding off purchases? Direct sales are about 40% of total sales according to my projections. Most companies have been working on large back-order sales lists since the PALM Vx and Palm VIIx has been in short supply since July 2000. What were international sales That is my major weakness.... I don't have any international distributor contacts nor major international retail chain contacts. I just assumed 30% of sales are international just to keep consistent with Palm's historical trend...however, I realize this could be a number that can make or break my financial model. Will Palm get accused of stuffing the channel before the roll-out of new devices I don't think so since Palm acts on firm sales orders before they ship. Additionally, since most of the PALM Vx orders came because of firm HUGE Back-ordered lists, the demand and supply componant should be well satisfied. And most importantly, what will Palm's guidance be for the next 2 quarters Well I think they will increase their guidance substantially to account for the easier supply situation, and new models sales going forward. REGARDS TOM