“Is Dell, Inc. really in that bad of shape? Some in the market seem to think so, as Dell, Inc. shares were downgraded from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ today by American Technology, who pointed out that the world’s largest computer manufacturer is feeling the heat from industry competitors like Hewlett-Packard Company and Apple Computer, Inc.,” Brian White writes for BloggingStocks.
“I’m not so sure I buy the Apple argument (its marketshare is low and its computer prices, high), but I’d agree HP is causing much of Dell’s grief these days,” White writes.
“Analysts at American Technology published a research note published on Tuesday that referenced Dell’s recent ramp-up of AMD-based computers — which was termed as ‘weak’ by the analysts. While I am not sure how they are measuring this, a quick look at Dell’s web site prominently features many systems (mostly desktop) with AMD processors are excellent prices — not looking to ‘weak’ to me in light of that,” White writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you’re going to blog about stocks, if would be helpful if you understood the market in which the companies you’re covering compete, Mr. White. Now for some actual facts:
According to IDC, Apple’s U.S. unit shipments posted 16% growth in Q2 2006 vs. Q2 2005, HP grew 15.5% during the same period. Dell showed only 6.4% growth during the same period. In February, Apple pushed Dell down into second place in the European education market, taking the #1 spot with 15.2% to Dell’s 14.7% (HP in third with 14.2%). And this was with Apple still in the middle of the Intel transition. Quite obviously, Dell is feeling serious heat from Apple. In addition, Apple’s OS-unlimited Macs are very competitively-priced to Dell’s and HP’s OS-limited boxes; often, Macs are considerably less expensive than comparable Dell and HP PCs. Apple’s current market value is $64,076,458,560. That’s $11,761,188,140 more than Dell’s value. Lastly, AMD processors now lag behind Intel’s processors which now power all of Apple’s Macs, that’s why Dell’s AMD-based PCs are “weak.”
Related articles:
Dell cannot compete with Apple’s new Mac Pro price or feature set – August 15, 2006
Apple Mac Pro with/ 20” Cinema Display less expensive than Dell Precision 690 sans monitor – August 10, 2006
Bear Stearns: Apple’s new Mac Pro, Xserve pricing well below comparable Dell systems – August 09, 2006
IDC: Apple Mac attained 4.8% U.S. market share in Q2 06 – July 19, 2006
IDC: Apple Mac sales outpace industry average in UK and Western Europe markets – June 09, 2006
Apple passes Dell in market value – May 02, 2006
Apple Mac is #1 in European education market, pushes Dell down into second place – February 03, 2006
“its marketshare is low and its computer prices, high”
Someone needs to buy this poor schmuck a clue.
Haven’t we already learned over the years that analysts don’t have a clue about the tech sector, especially when it comes to Apple?
A reality cluebat — Apple’s quarterly numbers — will strike on October 18th. Some dolts will think it an anomaly.
And a clue as to how to properly use punctuation.
Geez… this guy must make a killing in the market with such a grasp of it.
The formula is fairly simple – Dell is a one-trick pony, that is stuborn to change. The insantity effect has been setting in down there in Round-Rock, TX (doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results)…
Dell is getting hit hard in retail:
1. HP is pushing hard and effectively with their ads. Yes, little in the way of actual HP inventiveness in the product, but the ads are none-the-less effective and target the consumer well.
2. Apple opens a new Apple retail store, on average, every nine days. With 161 stores in operation, Apple is making a very effective dent into consumer purchases.
3. The delta between a well-equiped Dell and it’s competition has narrowed so much, the $50 premium to purchase at a retail store, where the consumer has test drove the product and can leave with the PC right then and there is worth the difference.
Lenovo, HP and even Apple have also created intelecutal brain drain on Dell, further compounding their issues.
Topping it off, world-wide, Lenovo is rapidly emerging as the new Dell.
~Mark
Don’t forget, I had a bad experience once.
:: …not looking to ‘weak’ to me in light of that,” White writes. ::
Mr. White, that would be too ‘weak.’
ROTFLAMO!
Apple is alone in the OS-Unlimited market. This is reason they should NEVER release OS X for OS-Limited boxes. It keeps those boxes “OS-Limited.”
Or should the term be Multi-OS versus Dual-OS?
Dell’s biggest problem is repeat business.
Few people who buy a Dell, ever buy another one.
Even if you love Windows, can build your own PC, if you were in a bind and speak fluent Hindi, you do not make the same mistake and buy another Dell.
It’s more than cheap components, poor assembly and bad customer service, it’s the ignorant a**holes that run the company.
HP’s 15.5 percent growth probably exceeds Apples total sales.
You can play with percentages all you like MDN but it is HP that is hurting Dell. A couple of years back HP made a big effort to lower their prices on corporate desktops and laptops. You can now buy HP quality kit for nearly the same price as a piece of s**t from Dell and the corporate world is shifting back.
Apple is having some effect though. They’re stealing Dell’s top-end consumer market, where Dell used to make a lot of profit. Combined with the HP effect, Dell are left with the low-end consumer area, with it’s miniscule margins and virtually non-existent profit. They could sell 20 million of those machines a quarter and still not make enough to justify the share price.
Net effect? Dell going the same way as Gateway. Successive losses leading to customers running for the door and the business heading into the toilet.
You hit the nail on the head, Big Al.
I don’t know one Mac user that ever said to me, “This OS sucks. I am going to Windows or Linux.” Apple must be over 85% as far as users repurchasing Mac products once they have tried one. This is why turning switchers is so important.
So get your friends to come out of the closet… except for Tom Cruise.
The Dell DJ died a quiet, unnoticed death. Blood on the click wheel. Maybe Michael should have tried a model in brown.
Quote: “Is Dell, Inc. really in that bad of shape?”
WHAT THE F-CK?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???
Jeezus H. Keerist on a stick — I’m only 40 and this galls the SH-T out of me! Who in the F-CK teaches these people how to construct and write sentences????
Is Dell, Inc. really in that bad of shape? In that bad OF SHAPE?!?!?!?
Shouldn’t it instead be something like “Is the shape that Dell, Inc. is in really that bad?”
-or-
“Is the condition of Dell, Inc. really that bad?”
-or-
SOMETHING?!?!?!?!?
Even when you don’t consider the fact that HP’s leadership is in a sh-tload of trouble, this guy’s a moron of the biggest kind.
Just proves that everyone with an internet connection thinks they’re a journalist.
Yes, HP is currently doing more damage to Dell than Apple. But if you don’t think Dell sees a threat coming from Apple as well, consider its recent TV ad. Some clueless guy calls in for a box to do “music and videos” – hardly Dell’s forte, but something people associate with Apple. He puts in for a dual proc box, then, “what the heck, let’s go for the 24″ monitor”. Dell happily responds with a “we’ll ship it right away”, to a customer with more money than brains. Who are they kidding?
I wonder when Dell is finally going to get sick of the “Hey, let’s sell this for $0 and make it up on volume! Heh heh hehe *snort*” mentality…?
I wonder when Dell is finally going to start realizing it actually needs to CREATE something of value and not just slap someone else’s inventions together.
I wonder when Dell is finally going to start realizing that shear marketshare numbers aren’t really a good indication of…well…anything.
As a Mac fan, I hope Dell finally realizes this stuff when it’s too late to do anything about it. I’d much rather see Apple, HP, and possibly Lenovo (for the biz crowd) share the spotlight with Dell fading into a lowly has-been like Gateway.
Apple has the highest average profit margin among large computer brands and has managed to maintain it even as it has squeezed it’s prices down toward the Dells, HPs and Sonys on the market. This means that even as Apple has increased it’s market share it has been able to grow profits.
Dell makes the bulk of it’s sales at the bottom end of the market where profits are very thin. This is the very reason that they purchased Ailenware and are attempting to move up-market. From below makers such as Lenovo are putting a hard squeeze on their profits. At the same time a resurgent H-P has put pressure on it in the heart of the home and commercial markets.
Pressure from Apple above, Lenovo below and H-P in the middle will make Dell rethink it’s market position and business model. So far, their efforts have met with little success. Dawdling will only make things worse. It’s decision time in Texas, and Dell doesn’t like the options it sees any more than Wall Street.
That’s the plain and simple truth of the matter. I won’t even charge you for it. Buy you Apple stock while you can, it’s still a good buy.
Comment:
From: Cartax
Oct 04, 06 – 04:48 pm
WHAT THE F-CK?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???
Jeezus H. Keerist on a stick — I’m only 40 and this galls the SH-T out of me! Who in the F-CK teaches these people how to construct and write sentences????
Is Dell, Inc. really in that bad of shape? In that bad OF SHAPE?!?!?!?
Shouldn’t it instead be something like “Is the shape that Dell, Inc. is in really that bad?”
-or-
“Is the condition of Dell, Inc. really that bad?”
-or-
SOMETHING?!?!?!?!?
—–
You might want to get off your high horse. Your profanity and childish rant bothers me more then his sentence structure.
But!!!
Zune and Vista is going to change everything!
*laughs*
Apple’s OS-unlimited Macs are very competitively-priced to Dell’s and HP’s OS-limited boxes;
Yep, where’s that $299 Apple, and $499 Apple notebook. Thay don’t exist.
Keeping quoting the “Comparable” systems thing is a wast of time to prove that Apple can finally compete in the mass market, most people are not going to pay the 100% Apple Premium when the the machine they buy for about half the price is 90% as fast and does everything it’s more expensive Mac sibling does, but it’s just not exactly component for component “Comparable” to the Mac.
But to consumers the’re a good compromise of price vs performance.
@Aid: Apple will never sell el cheapo systems like that because of all the toxic trash they contain. Some people (and companies) actually care about the environment.
For me the best feature of my Apple computers…. they last a long time.
My wife is on a 400MHz G3 Grape iMac. My daughter is on a 500MHz blue iMac. I’m on an old Quicksilver Powermac and regularly mix 32 tracks out of ProTools and edit five camera video shoots in Final Cut. All these machines are very reliable and show no signs of going away anytime soon. I’ve also got several G4 laptops, they’re all very reliable. I’ve been using Apple computers since 1985 and they’ve always been darned good.
I know several people (like my dumbass brother with a PHD) who bought an HP, it burned him, then he got a Dell and their tech support fried him, then he got an eMachine which died one month out of warranty, then he got a custom built beige box but there was some horrible driver incompatibility which took several months to nail down, so he finally returned that and got a Gateway which immediately had a bad power supply, so did the replacement they sent…… so he got another Dell. Apple was never a consideration because in his perception they’re not a PC and people associated with the Kansas university only use PC;s. Suffer on dude! Meanwhile my Quicksilver is on for 14 hours a day, everyday, gotta love them Apples.
“Suffer on dude! “
I bet he’s wishing he brought the 3 year warranty for $100 more. Obviously most people don’t have experiences like your Brother’s or no PCs would be sold.