Apple's Mac sales see slight pause ahead of Leopard

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
When Apple reports its fiscal second quarter results later this month, unit sales of its Mac computer line should come in towards the lower-end of expectations as some consumers have begun to put their purchases on hold ahead of the launch of Leopard, one Wall Street analyst says.



In a note to clients on Thursday, American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu said the buying pause will likely result in sales of between 1.37 million and 1.5 million Macs, significantly less than the 1.6 million units sold during the company's fiscal first quarter ended December.



"As a result, we are reducing our near-term Mac unit assumptions but raising estimates overall due to more favorable component pricing, better iPod sales, and resumed growth in Macs," the analyst wrote.



For the March quarter, Wu is now modeling Apple to report per-share earnings of 63 cents on sales of $5.12 billion, helped by sales of 1.4 million Macs and 10.3 million iPods. He had previously forecasted the Cupertino-based company to earn 60 cents on sales of $5.05 billion, based on sales of 1.43 million Macs and 9.2 million iPods. (Meanwhile, consensus estimates are at 63 cents and $5.2 billion, well above Apple's official guidance 54 cents to 56 cents and of $4.8-4.9 billion.)



The analyst told clients that iPod sales appeared to have fared more favorably during the second fiscal quarter than once thought, primarily due to better than expected sales of the new low-cost colored iPod shuffles. Meanwhile, he expects Mac sales will resume accelerated growth following the launch of Mac OS X "Leopard" at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference on June 11th.



For the current June quarter, Wu sees Apple offering its customary conservative guidance to reign in "sometimes unrealistic expectations." He's currently modeling for sales of $5.3 billion and per-share earnings of 64 cents, compared to consensus estimates of $5.5 billion and $0.68.



"While we believe Apple shares could be volatile as sell-side estimates get reset, we believe buy-side investors have more or less figured over the past year that sell-side estimates on Apple tend to be overzealous and sometimes outright irrational (particularly near-term)," the analyst told clients. "Regardless, we advise investors to take advantage should Apple shares pull back on short-term

concerns."



Wu reiterated his buy rating on shares of the consumer electronics maker, raising his 12-month price target slightly from $115 to $118.



"We continue to view Apple as among the strongest fundamental stories with its four-prong vertically integrated strategy (Mac, iPod + iTunes, Apple TV, and iPhone) and see several catalysts in the quarters ahead, including Mac OS X Leopard, new Macs, new iPods, new movie and carrier partners, and lower cost cell phones," he wrote.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    "... will likely result in sales of between 1.37 million and 1.5 million Macs, significantly less than the 1.6 million units sold during the company's fiscal first quarter ended December."

    [ View this article at AppleInsider.com ][/c]



    Is it just me or did the analysis forget there should be a lift during the Christmas results? I mean really...
  • Reply 2 of 22
    I was dutifully plodding through another boring analyst's forecast until I got to the last paragraph.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    "We continue to view Apple as among the strongest fundamental stories with its four-prong vertically integrated strategy (Mac, iPod + iTunes, Apple TV, and iPhone) and see several catalysts in the quarters ahead, including Mac OS X Leopard, new Macs, new iPods, new movie and carrier partners, and lower cost cell phones," he wrote.



    Carrier partners? Is he referring to AT&T, other wireless carriers or a different sort of "carrier" altogether?
  • Reply 3 of 22
    I would think that sales are going to slid further than analyst's think if Apple does'nt start fixing problens as they arise instead of waiting months to fix bugs in software and other hardware problems, such as expanding batteries in the 17" MacBooks.
  • Reply 4 of 22
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Restalot View Post


    Is it just me or did the analysis forget there should be a lift during the Christmas results? I mean really...



    Perhaps, but I think they previously expected an upsurge do to people's releunctabce to moving to VIsta. I also recall some preliminary reports from February and March showed an upsurge in Mac sales. Still, I don't think that a projected 0.1 to 0.21M lower from Q1 is "signifiacntly less".
  • Reply 5 of 22
    fraklincfraklinc Posts: 244member
    anyone out there know if the new imacs will have quad cores? i already sold my 24" imac on ebay and am just holding my macbook so i wont be stuck with it, not to mention leopard its coming out also i found a pic at the link below although it looks like photo shop, i want something like that



    http://idisk.mac.com/antizeit1/Public/blackmac23.jpg
  • Reply 6 of 22
    quinneyquinney Posts: 2,528member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Porchland View Post


    I was dutifully plodding through another boring analyst's forecast until I got to the last paragraph.







    Carrier partners? Is he referring to AT&T, other wireless carriers or a different sort of "carrier" altogether?



    He could mean non-US carriers in the "quarters ahead".
  • Reply 7 of 22
    macvaultmacvault Posts: 323member
    If Apple would just come out with a Mini Tower for ~ $900 I WOULD BUY RIGHT THIS MINUTE! What the #$%@ is it gonna take????
  • Reply 8 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Macvault View Post


    If Apple would just come out with a Mini Tower for ~ $900 I WOULD BUY RIGHT THIS MINUTE! What the #$%@ is it gonna take????



    If Apple would just come out with Magical Ponies for like $5 I WOUDL BY RIGHT NOW OMY GOD!!!!! What the fuck is wrong with them?
  • Reply 9 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Macvault View Post


    If Apple would just come out with a Mini Tower for ~ $900 I WOULD BUY RIGHT THIS MINUTE! What the #$%@ is it gonna take????



    The whole Apple Mac range is in urgent need of a refresh, especially the desktops

    - AND they should do a Headless Mac

    (not because it is hard, but because it is easy! - to paraphrase JFK!)

    - sometimes SJ needs to put his pride aside, and give the public what they want





    And they should offer free-upgrades to Leopard from April onwards to stop the pre-Leopard 'pause'.



  • Reply 10 of 22
    mickmick Posts: 5member
    I think most designers (like myself and about 5 people I know) are waiting on Adobe, not Leopard.
  • Reply 11 of 22
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,454member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samurai1999 View Post


    The whole Apple Mac range is in urgent need of a refresh, especially the desktops

    - AND they should do a Headless Mac

    (not because it is hard, but because it is easy! - to paraphrase JFK!)

    - sometimes SJ needs to put his pride aside, and give the public what they want





    And they should offer free-upgrades to Leopard from April onwards to stop the pre-Leopard 'pause'.







    Agreed on both accounts... I like the offering free upgrades... even though that bit M$ in the ass with a lawsuit cause they labeled computers as vista ready and they won't even run vista.... course apple wouldn't do that
  • Reply 12 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by emig647 View Post


    Agreed on both accounts... I like the offering free upgrades... even though that bit M$ in the ass with a lawsuit cause they labeled computers as vista ready and they won't even run vista.... course apple wouldn't do that



    Although waiting for the Santa Rosa refresh might have something to do with why there haven't been any new Apple laptops for a while.
  • Reply 13 of 22
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,454member
    Maybe, I don't know if the common consumer really knows the difference between today's chipset and santa rosa... there really isn't a lot. A faster bus speed (133mhz), maybe flash on the board... maybe a better graphics card. Not a whole lot IMO. In fact, I bought my 2.33 mbp about 6 weeks ago because I knew santa rosa sounded underwhelming and I needed my laptop. It wasn't worth the wait for such a minor bump... though 4 gigs of ram would be nice ... since 3 gigs isn't dual channel.
  • Reply 14 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by emig647 View Post


    Maybe, I don't know if the common consumer really knows the difference between today's chipset and santa rosa... there really isn't a lot. A faster bus speed (133mhz), maybe flash on the board... maybe a better graphics card. Not a whole lot IMO. In fact, I bought my 2.33 mbp about 6 weeks ago because I knew santa rosa sounded underwhelming and I needed my laptop. It wasn't worth the wait for such a minor bump... though 4 gigs of ram would be nice ... since 3 gigs isn't dual channel.



    Yes, apart from the graphics, it doesn't offer too much

    - but I was meaning that Apple are probably waiting for its release before updating the laptops - but unfortunately for Apple, Santa Rosa has taken a lot longer than expected to get out the door.



  • Reply 15 of 22
    charkocharko Posts: 84member
    Yes, I think S.J has a stubborn streak. He doesn't want to produce a 'standard', flexible computer.



    He had the same problem with the multi-buttoned mouse.



    We can only hope that he'll see sense sooner than later.
  • Reply 16 of 22
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,454member
    Yah, I see your pont. Though the laptops aren't out of date yet. They haven't even reached their average release time. I think we'll see some hardware updates at wwdc. At least I hope... all we get are new colored ipods and an 8 core upgrade to apple... yay :-|
  • Reply 17 of 22
    tbagginstbaggins Posts: 2,306member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samurai1999 View Post


    The whole Apple Mac range is in urgent need of a refresh, especially the desktops

    - AND they should do a Headless Mac

    (not because it is hard, but because it is easy! - to paraphrase JFK!)

    - sometimes SJ needs to put his pride aside, and give the public what they want





    And they should offer free-upgrades to Leopard from April onwards to stop the pre-Leopard 'pause'.







    Yep, definitely. Read my sig.



    .
  • Reply 18 of 22
    superbasssuperbass Posts: 688member
    I don't think many people are waiting for Leopard as they are for a line re-fresh. People waited for Adobe before getting Mactels and now that it's almost here, nobody wants a computer that's due for a refresh in the next few months...
  • Reply 19 of 22
    tbagginstbaggins Posts: 2,306member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Macvault


    If Apple would just come out with a Mini Tower for ~ $900 I WOULD BUY RIGHT THIS MINUTE! What the #$%@ is it gonna take????



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gregmightdothat View Post


    If Apple would just come out with Magical Ponies for like $5 I WOUDL BY RIGHT NOW OMY GOD!!!!! What the fuck is wrong with them?



    Not really the same thing. I mean, Apple could easily do a $900 minitower (not that I'd recommend that price point- too low), but magical ponies?



    The closest you're gonna get is to drop a hit of acid and stare at some Shetlands for awhile.



    .
  • Reply 20 of 22
    Aha, Wu again...
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