<strong>Veritas</strong> <strong>et</strong> <strong>Visus</strong> <strong>Display</strong> <strong>Standard</strong> February 2009 For the first time in its history, Apple tallied more than $10 billion revenue, reporting sales of $10.17 billion for the three months ended December 31. That’s up 6% from the revenue of $9.6 billion Apple recorded during the yearago quarter. The company reported a $1.61 billion profit, up 2% from last year. Apple earned $1.78 per diluted share, up from $1.76 a year ago and ahead of analyst expectations. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call expected revenues of $9.75 billion and $1.39 per diluted share. On the r<strong>et</strong>ail front, Apple ended the quarter with 251 stores in 10 countries. Total revenue from the stores rose 2% from the 2008 first quarter to $1.74 billion. However, average per store revenue fell to $7 million from $8.5 million last year. The company plans to open 25 more stores during the 2009 fiscal year, with half of those openings slated for outside the US. WitsView’s Mark<strong>et</strong> Confidence Index (MCI) WitsView Technology Corporation, a Taiwan-based LCD Research Institution, routinely publishes a fascinating peak into the health of the TFT LCD mark<strong>et</strong> and has graciously given us permission to occasionally reprint their Mark<strong>et</strong> Confidence Index (MCI) as part of the <strong>Display</strong> <strong>Standard</strong>. WitsView’s commentary: “B<strong>et</strong>ween January 12, 2009 to January 30, 2009, the MCI index rose from 4363.2 to 4386.4, up slightly by 23.2 points. The index variations during this time period were relatively small, fluctuating b<strong>et</strong>ween 4255 and 4482. A key reason stemmed from the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays, where the stock prices of the Taiwan and Korean panel makers were respectively unavailable for 7 and 2 days. In addition, the index also appeared to be weighed by the panel makers’ expected quarterly financial losses for 4Q08. For reference, among the already released figures, LGD and Samsung respectively posted a 7% and 8% operating loss, while AUO reported a whopping 44.3% operating loss. On a different note, it is worthy to note that the MCI index started to fall below the 20-day average on Jan 21, 2009. The difference with the 20-day average reached as high as 126.3 points during the index’s subsequent development. Fortunately, as of Jan 30, it narrowed to 11.0 points. The crossover reflects the still shaky outlook surrounding the TFT-LCD industry, despite mark<strong>et</strong> anticipations of a monitor panel price increase in February.” Source: WitsView The MCI is an indicator tailored for the TFT LCD industry. In the past, mark<strong>et</strong>ers tend to use the mainstream panel prices to diagnose the health of the TFT LCD industry and predict its mark<strong>et</strong> trend. However, as the application sizes vary and mark<strong>et</strong> focus changes all the time, it is never easy to find an appropriate tool to judge the mark<strong>et</strong> climate. In view of this, WitsView develops MCI, aimed to become a mutual-language among industry participants for effective communication on industry outlook and mark<strong>et</strong> trend. MCI is NOT an underlying index traded in any mark<strong>et</strong>; those who use MCI as their trading benchmark should judge with their discr<strong>et</strong>ion and take the full responsibility for any loss that incurs. WitsView and <strong>Veritas</strong> <strong>et</strong> <strong>Visus</strong> hereby expressly disclaim all warranties of originality or accuracy. 94
<strong>Veritas</strong> <strong>et</strong> <strong>Visus</strong> <strong>Display</strong> <strong>Standard</strong> February 2009 95
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