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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patrick E.McDaniel who wrote (37843)	4/14/1998 8:14:00 PM
From: Gabriel008	Respond to of 176387

Patrick, new information source. European PC sales, a market that represents an ever-increasing revenue base for DELL, interests me a great deal because it represents over 20% of DELL's unit volume & is a strong indicator of DELL's quarterly results. This market is much more fragmented than the US business, less price competitive &, in my opinion, the market where DELL will continue to allocate a disproportionately higher degree of resources. Just look at the Q4 results [50% sequential growth] & you'll see why DELL should continue to aggressively exploit this market. On this basis I sourced a European research organization named CONTEXT [http://www.context1.com/] & picked up some very interesting data & narrative analysis. Context measures both factory & retail sales [in & out] and in their 4th quarter reports shows that Compaq really did stuff the channel in Germany, France & the UK. Interestingly enough, Compaq undersold the channel in Q3. To no one's surprise[mine in any event]Apple, HWP & IBM all managed to significantly stuff the channel in Q4 - and in prior quarters as well. IBM being the biggest culprit - greater even than Compaq. Although Europe doesn't represent the US market it is very indicative of a corporation's overall management philosophy - in this case "Make your monthly budget at all costs, even if you mortgage next month's business". This quote essentially paraphrases the mantra of most corporations & in my view the primary reason for overstuffing. Compaq may have learned from this overstuffing issue & are taking their lumps. The other channel stuffers will also have to pay the piper - sooner rather than later. Now that DELL has established a relatively large volume base in Europe any significant sequential growth - in the range of 35% in Q1 - will allow them to experience flat sequential growth in the rest of the world & still achieve 44› eps for Q1. I'm in the process of discussing other available data with CONTEXT such as monthly sales data & monthly ASP's. These are available for a fee & if reasonable will subscribe to their services. I would appreciate feedback.