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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (48325)	2/22/1999 6:20:00 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike: is there a way to find out how much of those Dell on-line sale was from computer and how much was from others, like digital camera etc.? I think the revenues from other sales are increasing at a faster speed. I might be wrong. Thanks a lot.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (48325)	2/23/1999 11:25:00 AM
From: Eggolas Moria	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

<<Gary, Let me jump in on this one. >> Please do. I'm confused enough as it is. <<. The average sales price is simply revenues divided by units. >> OK, but I see the information reported in different terms by various companies. Some use ASP or AUP and some use weighted ARP. I guess I was trying to understand the difference between weighted and unweighted numbers as well as the three different acronyms (unit, sales, revenue). Guess a call might be necessary to the IR persons. <<The Dept. of Commerce says that ASPS of computers were down 26% in 1998 from 1997. Of course, that is all computers, not just pcs. >> I understand, and it troubles me to extrapolate this to PCs given the large price disparities involved. That is why I was looking at the 10-Q's from the PC makers. Not seeing a 20% decline in ASP until the fourth quarter led me to believe that there might be a problem with saying that ASP's declined 20% for the entire year. The numbers don't necessarily correlate. ASPs might be down that much over the range of units sold for the year as one might want to include sales promotions, etc from manufacturer to retailer/wholesaler. But that is not a series of hard numbers. <<Also, incentives to the channel to accept a stuff, known outside the industry as a rebate, do not reduce ASPs. >> We are in agreement here. I just don't know how each PC maker handles the issue. For instance, in it's recent 10-Q, CPQ states that its gross margin was adversely impacted by "significant pricing and promotional actions taken by Compaq in the North American market during the first and second quarters of 1998 to meet the channel inventory goals . ..." What I don't know is if the promotional activity went to reduce reported ASP's as well. My hunch is that for the most part, the reported ASPs do not include rebates of about $100-$300, which have become standard since October. <<Hope this helps.>> Me, too.<g>