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

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (98324)	2/12/1999 8:16:00 PM
From: Gabriel008	Respond to of 176387

Chuzz, all my data is at the office. I'll review the US data tomorrow and get back to you. However, I'm surprised he's quoting just US data. What about Europe where DELL's growth in Q4 was typically outstanding. Regards, Gabriel

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (98324)	2/13/1999 3:40:00 PM
From: Gabriel008	Read Replies (8) \| Respond to of 176387

Chuzzlewit, Here's the Worldwide and US unit volume and yoy growth for DELL's product categories in Q4. .................worldwide....yoy.........US.....yoy ................................growth.................growth portables......406k........78%........260k....73% Desktops....1815k........51%.......1075k....53% servers.........69k..........63%........41k.....64% I can't compare these with Niles' data because he's talking revenues and all I have are units. However, his portables growth is suspect given that there's a 22% difference. His Enterprise number could be correct if he is in fact adding in Data Storage to the server business[I'll get back to Data Storage below]. Desktops could also be accurate if DELL's growing consumer business has dropped the ASP's in this category. There are a number of issues that baffle me concerning the Banc Boston Robertson Stephens [BBRS]report, however. 1] They reduced DELL's Q4 unit volume from 2.3 to 2.2 million units claiming a soft finish for the quarter. This means that IDC's data showing 2.291 million units was high and, in my experience with IDC, they have been accurate to 99% the last 12 quarters. If anything, IDC has always been low in their estimate. From conversations I've had with IDC all WS analysts obtain their data from IDC. So why would BBRS have a different set of data from that of IDC? 2] Data Storage is not included in the 2.291 million units that IDC reports. This is a separate new category for DELL in which they generated $300 million incremental volume in the October to December period. Why would this not be included in BBRS' report. 3] The BBRS report is very fuzzy on ASP's. Based on their revised 2.2 million units and $5.2 billion in revenue the ASP works out to $2364. Where did the $2350 ASP number for Q4 come from? 4] The BBRS report also had one zinger that really drew my attention; "we believe that better expense control and margins enabled the company to reach consensus EPS of $0.31". They state that Gross Margins may have increased to 23.00% from 22.50% in Q3. This is hard to believe given that they claimed ASP's were dropping and that component prices were firming in Q4. I would expect under these conditions that, at best, Gross profit margins would remain static at 22.5%. This report, more than anything else, disappointed me. I would have expected a more professional analysis backed up with reliable hard data. The numbers in this analysis don't work and it leads me to think that Dan Niles signed off on a report that he shouldn't have. All in all, I'm expecting revenue of $5.7 billion and EPS of $0.34. Regards, Gabriel