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

To: Richard Habib who wrote (16033)	7/29/1998 12:20:00 PM
From: Mark Palmberg	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213182

My questions is, why is this stock up over a point today? I went and toured a new Best Buy last night that just opened nearby. The place was packed, but the most crowded department in the entire store was the computer department. Every floor model had someone standing in front of it, oohing and aahing over the bright lights and pretty colors. I had to smile to myself as I walked by, knowing that any current Apple machine would make the rest of those machines look like a bunch of wrecks. My favorite overheard salesman quote: "Yes, it's plug and play...but you know how that goes." GO AAPL! Mark

To: Richard Habib who wrote (16033)	7/29/1998 12:42:00 PM
From: Eric Yang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213182

Richard, Apple sold 180K AIO in Q3. I don't think Apple will have a problem shipping 200K iMacs in Q4. These machines are easy to make. I think the reason why people say that availability will be constrained is because demand will be high not because production will be low. For comparison, we shipped 133K of G3s in Q1 and 100K of PowerBooks G3 in Q3. Both were achieved in about 45 days. The iMacs will be produced in all 3 factories and the components for the iMac isn't constrained like the LCD screen in PowerBooks. I think we'll ship 200K easy.. Even if AIO unit shipment drops 300K total entry level machines should be pretty easy....but that is just my opinion. As for Pro line. As you can see I've lowered the unit number by about 10% and AUP by over $200. Considering this is the back-to-school quarter this should be pretty conservative. The new 300, 333, 366 Pro lines should be available in Aug but I'm not even taking the upside benefits of those into consideration. PowerBooks Given that we shipped 103K in Q3, 150K in Q4 should be doable. The recent high in terms of unit shipment was in Q3 97 where I believe Apple shipped 133K laptops and recorded over 400 million in powerbook revenue. That was when 3400 began shipping in volume. Back then only ONE product in the PowerBook line was refreshed. Today the entire PowerBook line has been refreshed by WallStreet PB and the product is much more popular. I think most would consider 150K to be very conservative. Based on some rough calculations I did, the AUP for PowerBooks should climb to $2800 or higher as G3 PowerBooks percentage increase from 69% to 90+% in Q4. I haven't even taken into account the benefit of high end PowerBook models. Eric

To: Richard Habib who wrote (16033)	7/29/1998 3:08:00 PM
From: Marc Newman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213182

Richard, as just an add-on to Eric's comment, most of the "word" we've gotten about the iMac is that Apple's goal is to sell 250K this quarter. Not 400K by Dec. 31. I think that's part of the confusion here. We also heard that Apple's sales to education (by an impartial industry tracker) were up almost 20% from last year. Since this quarter is the big education buying season, this trend could continue. The 121,000 AIOs Apple sold last quarter may be small in comparison. What happens to the bottom line if Apple sells 175,000 AIOs and 250,000 iMacs this quarter? It's in the realm of possibility, at least. We should keep all the reasonable possibilities in front of us and weight them accordingly. Anyway, Eric's estimate that G3 Pro unit sales will fall just 10% isn't hard to achieve since price cuts spur demand and since PC sales are picking up. Plus, the refresh is coming. I think it was Macintouch yesterday that said the refresh was coming August 14. It was another reason to pick up more AAPL yesterday. This is a major refresh, IMO. Since Nov.'s product launch we've only seen one increase with the addition of a 300 mhz G3. This refresh adds two new speeds, plus turns the former high end into the low-end, in one swoop. I think this is also important because the PII has increased clock speed rapidly since last fall. This keeps us closer in the mhz range. I mean, sure many might believe the bytemarks that show the G3 is faster, but it's harder to believe when the PII is over 100 mhz "faster." I guess to me a 366 mhz G3 seems a more realistic 450 mhz PII toaster than a 300 mhz G3 does. I agree with your comment that the iMac will remove motivation to buy the low end G3, but if you look at Apple's inventory level and these stories we've been hearing about sporadic product shortages one gets the idea that there aren't that many that really have to be moved. And in two weeks (four at the latest) the low-end G3 will be 300 mhz and not really comparable to the iMac. Here's another way to look at it. I think all of us are a little concerned about Pro revenues this quarter, pre-refresh. However, Apple can have a bad month of July sales, only to have the quarter turn out great due to August and September. Look at Q3 last year. April and May were total dogs. June had the 8600s and Apple beat the street by 50%. Profits and revenues should increase for the rest of the calendar year. I don't anticipate having to make any hard choices about my core AAPL position until January. And trading-wise, I think we're looking at $38 by Aug. 15, minimum. Marc