Intuitive Surgical, Inc. Message Board

Ah but it doesn't get anymore meaningful now does it?

Same answer as before. Sequential is not what matters. There is a reason that comparisons are always gauged against the prior year's results. Once you understand why, you might have a chance to make some money by some means other than luck.

Can't help you any more than we already have. If you are determined not to see it, you won't see it. AND YOU ARE DETERMINED. So you're stuck with your own preconceptions.

The analysts see it. The longs see it. The only people who don't see it are the people who routinely come by and are blinded by the PE after 10 minutes of DD or 3 minutes of looking at the chart. All you have to do is go back and read what has already been written. It's all there.

If you understand this business, you will see why this board has been littered with people making the same claims as you for as long as ISRG has been around. For a brief time during the worst economic crisis in 75 years the PE made it into the teens, but as soon as the worst of that was over it bumped right back up to "unsustainable" levels and the share price made new highs. Despite claims of saturation in the US, and skeptics certainty that hospitals couldn't afford to spend on "these expensive machines", ISRG has booked record domestic unit sales too. Hell even European unit sales were up this qtr and NOBODY expected that.

How many hospitals are skipping getting $6M MRIs? Not many from what I have seen. Never been in a hospital that didn't have one even though some of them are used 1-2X per day and can only get recharged a few hundred bucks. Yet every po-dunk hospital with an ER entrance has to have one.

I see you are gradually learning about the company but you are still way down on the clueless end of the spectrum.

Channel stuffing is selling to a distributor or overselling inventory to an cusomer to boost the appearance of short term sales. That did not happen in the case of Japan nor is is really possible.

What is it you think the said to the hospital, Do you mind taking an extra multi-million dollar surgical robot, we would really appreciate it, we're tring to make our numbers.

Waht actually happened is that they sold a few system into Japan under special permission several years back. These were used by the Japanese version of the FDA to evaluate and test them for approval. That approval came through about a year ago. The next hurdle was import licenses which came last qtr and the final is reimbursement which has not happned yet. The 7 system sold last qtr were quite unanticipated because they thought they might get one or two cutting edge hospitals that were willing to purchase the robot before the reimbursements were set up that allow them to get paid for the operations they do. Instead 7 hospitals last qtr and one more this qtr decided to buy before the reimbursement approval because they are so anxious to start learing and using the daVinci. These were unanticipated early sales in Japan. The demand in Japan is much stronger than they anticipated. Once reimbursement approval comes through the other large hospitals will start purchasing and there are A LOT of large hospitals in Japan. There is no certain timeline for reimbursement approval but so far the other steps have all happened fairly quickly. Reimbursement will almost certainly happen by mid-2011 and potentially at ANY time. When it does there will be a flood of Japanese orders. Analysts have estimated that Japan could account for 10% of ISRG's installed base within 5 years. That's about 150 systems.

actually the increase is greater than it seems. This q there was one machine sold in Japan. Last q had seven, which were just to learn and experiment with. When the Japanese government decides on a reinbursement rate(it's a single payer system) the sales will take off.

Japan with an aging population should be the largest market after the US. They could easily install 500+ machines.
ISRG's growth curve is still ahead.