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Technology Stocks : VALENCE TECHNOLOGY (VLNC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FMK who wrote (7311)	1/21/1999 11:30:00 PM
From: I. N. Vester	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27311

the matsushita announcement may be BS check out www.eetimes.com and look for the article which discusses the battery with the claim 'went into production on 1/20/99'. In that article you will find a link to a 12/08/98 article by the same author, Yoshiko Hara. the 12/08 article cites a Matsushita spokesperson as saying that they plan to start shipping li-poly batteries in april but no dates for volume production. "nothing has been decided yet. generally speaking, it takes from 1/2 to 1 year from the supply of samples to volume production. unless we get 100 customers we don't begin volume production". So we have a direct quote from a Matsushita spokes- person just 1 month ago telling us that they will start sampling in April. Yet today they tell us they began volume production. I've stated this before, but my company has done business in Japan for years and I myself have lived and worked there for eight years. These kinds of press releases mean far, far less over there than they do here. Lev is scared to admit to anything except to earnings once the money starts flowing in, but the Japanese, the Koreans, etc can make just about any claim they want with impunity, and they very often do announce products which exist only in an engineer's head. It is very possible that 'volume production' means that they have just begun with their first machine runs and have sent out samples (the article says they have sent samples to 10 customers). If they have not in fact produced in volume, then they may be 1 year or more away from volume production. The entire announcement could be an attempt to try to start competing with vlnc even tho they don't have production going. Many Japanese companies have demonstrated exactly that kind of competitive strategy, in the past, with both domestic and foreign competitors. There is just no way of knowing what the reality is, but I think the 12/08 quote from the Matsushita spokesperson gives us a very strong hint that the 1/20 'volume production' announcement is probably pure BS. Again, this is a very typical strategy in a country where lawyers need not be consulted before every press release, and the art of 'creative' PR announcements has honoured tradition.

To: FMK who wrote (7311)	1/21/1999 11:40:00 PM
From: P. Ramamoorthy	Respond to of 27311

FMK - Re.:"...Matsushita's intended 300,000 per month seems equivalent to what Valence might have done last year with their small pilot line in Henderson. A year later, just one of Valence's high speed lines should be able to turn out Matsushita's "intended" monthly output in just 3 or 4 days, leaving another 26 or so days per month to make other products that were higher watt-hour..." With this 8:1 production rate advantage, VLNC can dump their batteries and grab the market share, ruthlessly speaking. It's a possibility, if the above is confirmed. Ram

To: FMK who wrote (7311)	1/22/1999 1:59:00 AM
From: Larry Brubaker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27311

100,000 batteries per line per day? 6 lines? $875 stock price? Fred, you are getting so far into out into that cow pasture you are going to have a hard time finding your way home. Maybe I should get you a cow bell? As a reality check, 100,000 batteries/line/day X 250 days/year X 6 lines = 150 million batteries per year. This amount far exceeds the combined annual market for cell phones and laptops. Maybe you should first worry about how VLNC will pay for one line, before you worry about VLNC commanding more than the entire world market for high performance secondary batteries. I assume the reason Klockner filed suit against VLNC is because VLNC didn't bother to pay them for that line. Maybe your inside sources could fill us in on the status of Klockner vs. VLNC?