Apple expected to sell 2.7 million Macs in fall quarter

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster reports Apple is on track to sell between 2.7 and 2.8 million Macs in its fourth fiscal quarter, based on retail data released by NPD Group.



NPD has pegged Apple's July sales as a 2% rise over last year, which Munster says implies 3% to 7% growth for the full quarter when factoring in back to school sales, according to a report published by Fortune.



"With just one month of data," Munster wrote, "it is way too early to make a call on the quarter given ~50% of Mac sales in the quarter typically happen in the month of Sept." Munster also noted that Apple's international sales are growing faster than US sales for both Macs and iPods. NPD only reports on domestic retail sales. The end of the recession in Germany, France and Japan will no doubt help boost Apple's sales internationally as well.



Despite the recession's assault on retail sales over the last year, Apple managed to grow its July 2008 sales by 43% over 2007, making the additional 2% growth this year indicative of continued, if slowing, growth throughout the global downturn. Average selling prices of Macs was down 4% in July over June 2008; Munster expects ASP figures for the entire fall quarter to be down 6% over the previous summer quarter.



iPods turning into iPhone sales



Sales of iPods are expected to continue to recede, with July's unit sales down by 17% over the previous year. The typical back to school bundling promotion Apple runs, offering free iPods with new Macs, should boost iPod sales over the end of the quarter, bringing quarterly sales to just 5% to 14% less than last year.



Sales of iPods began to plateau last year, with only slight growth over 2007. This year, sales of iPods have actually slipped slightly, with summer quarter sales falling from 11 million in 2008 to 10.2 million this year.



Apple executives have acknowledged that they see the market for traditional MP3 players continuing to level off, and have made efforts to replace those sales with iPhone and iPod touch models. During the same summer quarter, for example, iPhone sales jumped from 717 thousand to 5.2 million, resulting in a large net gain of combined iPod and iPhone sales overall, from 11.7 million in 2008 to 15.4 million this year.



Rapid growth of the iPhone overseas is also contributing to this "sales cannibalism," which results in allowing Apple to migrate MP3 users to its iPhone software platform and gives the company even more opportunity to sell Macs and its related services such as MobileMe.



Strong international growth in the iPhone was highlighted recently by the report that the iPhone 3GS was the top rated phone in Japan for the month of July, erasing any remaining worries that the Japanese market might "hate" the iPhone.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 36
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Not bad for a company that produces elitist, overpriced hardware who's only distinguishing feature is that it comes from Apple.



    /sarcasm
  • Reply 2 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DocNo42 View Post


    Not bad for a company that produces elitist, overpriced hardware who's only distinguishing feature is that it comes from Apple.



    Go back to your hoi polloi world (and stew happily in it).



    Sd/-

    Apple Elitist
  • Reply 3 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    Go back to your hoi polloi world (and stew happily in it).



    Sd/-

    Apple Elitist



    I think Doc was being facetious.
  • Reply 4 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GregoriusM View Post


    I think Doc was being facetious.



    Oops.... should have checked his posting history.... sorry, Doc.
  • Reply 5 of 36
    dcj001dcj001 Posts: 301member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DocNo42 View Post


    Not bad for a company that produces elitist, overpriced hardware who's only distinguishing feature is that it comes from Apple.



    Yeah, that's right:



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oecXImARKuA
  • Reply 6 of 36
    ivladivlad Posts: 742member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DocNo42 View Post


    Not bad for a company that produces elitist, overpriced hardware who's only distinguishing feature is that it comes from Apple.



    Spoken like a true lower class citizen.
  • Reply 7 of 36
    Note that the Japanese phones are quite diverse in model numbers while offering pretty much the same features and styling even among the same vendor and carrier, so while it’s definitely a great achievement the the 32GB iPhone is #1 and the 16GB iPhone is #9 in terms of unit sales for a particular model, we shouldn’t forget the context in which the achievement was completed. Knowing the unit sales for each vendor and/or knowing the new activations for people wanting the iPhone would, of course, give us better perspective.
  • Reply 8 of 36
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Joking aside I think the analyst are underestimating just how well the laptop refresh will be recieved. The MBP line currently represents the ideal laptop for the student or traveling businessman. Something that I don't think is escaping the buying publics mind.



    Complain all you want about the price but where else can you get a laptop that is as well engineered as the new MBP and as reasonably priced? I wouldn't be surprised to find them up by close to ten percent for the quarter.





    Dave
  • Reply 9 of 36
    3 million Macs this quarter
  • Reply 10 of 36
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    iPod sales are down because of the recession as well. We don't know if their sales will continue to move down afterwards. And let's not forget that in the USA, at least, the recession started in November 2007. Some of us argued that back in early 2008.



    Computer sales are way down because of that as well. I wonder where they would be if there wasn't a recession. Likely 30% higher than last year.
  • Reply 11 of 36
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jcsegenmd View Post


    3 million Macs this quarter



    Isn't this currently Apples fourth quarter as far as the books go? Which makes me wonder about the rumored tablet coming in the first quarter. Is it the first of the fisical or calendar quarters? Apple could be diliberately trying to confuse people here.



    As for September is that month the beginning or end of a fisical quarter at Apple?



    The problem as I see it is that some of the software coming (rumored) in September really needs a tablet to deliver full potential. Thus if the liner notes crap and other stuff comes that is part of the new album format, in September, then a tablet will be needed.



    Note that yes this implies that I think the new tablet is an iPod derived device. At this point that should surprise no one.







    Dave
  • Reply 12 of 36
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    Isn't this currently Apples fourth quarter as far as the books go? Which makes me wonder about the rumored tablet coming in the first quarter. Is it the first of the fisical or calendar quarters? Apple could be diliberately trying to confuse people here.



    As for September is that month the beginning or end of a fisical quarter at Apple?



    The problem as I see it is that some of the software coming (rumored) in September really needs a tablet to deliver full potential. Thus if the liner notes crap and other stuff comes that is part of the new album format, in September, then a tablet will be needed.



    Note that yes this implies that I think the new tablet is an iPod derived device. At this point that should surprise no one.







    Dave



    Yes, this is their fourth fiscal quarter of the year. It ends on september 30th.



    Apple hasn't said anything about a tablet at all, so we have no idea of what's going on, though it seems as though there is some sort of tablet coming either with a September announcement, if you believe some. Or in the first calender quarter of 2010, if you believe others.



    One person said in the first half of 2010 (calender).



    So it's all over the place.



    If this is real, unless it's just not ready, I don't know why Apple would want to miss the holiday season.
  • Reply 13 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iVlad View Post


    Spoken like a true lower class citizen.



    Check his history of posts. You'll know what I mean.
  • Reply 14 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    go back to your hoi polloi world (and stew happily in it).



    Sd/-

    apple elitist



    lol!.
  • Reply 15 of 36
    Are UK Educational Sales liely to add to this surge in Macs Sales?

    From our experience in the decision making process of ICT purchasing for a large UK school we feel that UK Educational Sales are likely to remain flat as budget and "value for money" constraints confine our ICT spending. Although the prices of Macs have come down of late, the emergence of the netbook is now starting to gain traction in many areas of educational ICT thinking. This makes the Mac an even bigger specialist tool.

    Amongst students, Macs will no doubt be a favorite, but amongst parents, saddled with increased insecurity, they still look like an expensive option, even with the back to school promo pricing. Unfortunately, the value of iLife is undermined by Pages and the truely worthless iWeb packages.

    Overall, we think educational sales in the UK are likely to be subdued as parent power, recession and budget constraints continue to bite.
  • Reply 16 of 36
    sajsaj Posts: 19member
    I think among this whole increment there must be > 70% increased by iPhone developers!!!!
  • Reply 17 of 36
    I wonder how effective the Back-to-School free iPod Touch is at increasing the iPhone OS user base. It'd be very interesting to see what the specific numbers are, but it's doubtful Apple will ever release such details. I'm guessing overall Mac profit margins can cover giving away a free iPod Touch and it'd probably be worthwhile to Apple as a whole at the end of the day, but free iPod Touch will negatively affect the iPod division's revenue.
  • Reply 18 of 36
    nceencee Posts: 857member
    And as long as Apple makes devices that serve more then one purpose, then some other item will suffer some.



    - iPhone WILL hurt iPod sales ? some

    - Laptops WILL hurt desktop unit sales some ? how much?

    - LACK of new and exciting desktop unit(s) WILL hurt sales ? some

    - iPod Touch WILL hurt iPhone sales some ? how much?

    - iTab WILL hurt sales of Laptops & desktops ? how much? This might be why Apple is waiting to release it. Get as many other items sold before you come out with something, that can and will replace other items.



    Hell I don't doubt for a minute, that cell phones with ok / nice cameras built in, HAVE had an effect on digital camera sales ? How much is anyones guess. And as they increase the pixels / quality of the cameras in these units, it will dig into the sales even more.



    For right now, I'd love to see a new and exciting line up of desk top units and LARGE monitors, as we are ready to replace what we currently have.



    Skip
  • Reply 19 of 36
    laptop sales are canabalizing desktop sales. the desktop sales haven't gone up like laptop sales

  • Reply 20 of 36
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MySchizoBuddy View Post


    laptop sales are canabalizing desktop sales. the desktop sales haven't gone up like laptop sales





    That's not just with Apple. Desktop sales are down, way down, in the entire industry.



    Which is why the few people here crying about a mid-range headless Mac Pro or or a mid-range non-iMac desktop won't get one. No demand for it. We're moving toward smaller form-factor, portable, and streamlined. The iMacs are as close as a desktop will get to "portability" at this point (even the Mini) without moving into Laptop/notebook territory.
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