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

To: Jock Hutchinson who wrote (99827)	2/15/1999 9:17:00 PM
From: SecularBull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Unit sales are not as important as total net income in this day of inflating unit shipments with sub-$1,000, low margin machines. Just my opinion. LoD

To: Jock Hutchinson who wrote (99827)	2/15/1999 9:19:00 PM
From: Kayaker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

perhaps you can share with the thread the figures for 4Q '97 and compare them to 4Q '98. That way you won't be able to hide your seasonality argument in a rolling year over year figure. Is this good enough for you? Dell up 56% 4Q 97 to 4Q-98. Go to the bottom of the page, type in "IDC", search the Dell thread, do your homework. "IDC said Dell's calendar fourth-quarter shipments rose 56% year-over-year to 2.3 million computers. And Dataquest said Dell's shipments rose 65% in 1998 to account for 7.9% of all PCs shipped." exchange2000.com

To: Jock Hutchinson who wrote (99827)	2/15/1999 11:39:00 PM
From: SecularBull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Your question, if answered, would not lend any clear direction to where the growth trend is going. You question assumes that all fourth quarters are created equal (and they're not that static), and if it doesn't, then the data is irrelevant. I think the real answer to the overall growth trend can only be determined on a sequential year-over-year basis, and not sequentially quarter over quarter. Again, though, I'm not as concerned with unit sales growth as I am with growth in net income and margins. 5fer and company have proven that you can temporarily get away with cheating on unit shipments. They have not been able to fool anyone on the pure dollars and cents side. LoD

To: Jock Hutchinson who wrote (99827)	2/16/1999 12:09:00 AM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Jock, I'm not sure what you are asking precisely, but maybe this will help. According to IDC Dell sales worldwide increased from 1,471,000 in Q4 '97 to 2,291 in Q4 '98. Its market share increased from 6.2% to 8.4% at the end of each of those periods respectively. All vendors achieved 15% growth for the period. The data for the US market are as follows. Dell shipped 879,000 units in Q4 '1997 (9.9% market share) to 1,375,000 in Q4 '1998 (12.8% market share). The increase in sales for all vendors was 21 %. I don't have the industry growth figures for Q4 '97 compared to Q4 '96 so I can't answer that part of the question but I will try to get the answer. One thing ought to be clear. Dell's growth rate will decline as it gets larger. But it is still growing at least three times the world wide growth rate. Another point ought to be made. These figures are based on units shipped, not revenues. Companies shipping cheap PCs (like CPQ) will appear to be growing faster on a unit basis than they will on a revenue basis, and revenues is probably the more appropriate figure to compare. Unfortunately, I do not have world-wide revenue figures. TTFN, CTC