Gateway's slow new year improving
The personal computer maker had a "bad" January, but business has improved since then as the company has tried lower prices and new advertising.
"We did not have a good January in this business. January was actually below our typical seasonal trend," Waitt told analysts at a conference in San Diego, Calif., close to where the No. 2 direct U.S. PC seller is based. "We launched our new pricing, launched additional marcom (marketing and communications); we significantly beat those historical seasonal patterns," he said, referring to business since January.
The company said in a statement late Wednesday that it expects a pre-tax loss for the current quarter, excluding charges, of $100 million to $120 million, on revenue of about $1 billion. It also confirmed it expects to take charges in the range of $75 million to $100 million related to a restructuring announced last month.
Gateway expected PC unit sales this year could be between an "absolute bottom" low of 2.6 million--about a 20 percent drop from the previous year--and an upside scenario of about 3.3 million, Waitt said at the conference. That would produce revenues between about $4 billion and more than $5 billion for the year, he said.
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News.com's Ian Fried contributed to this report.