Goldman weighs in on Macworld, says 1.8m Macs sold in Dec Q

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Apple Computer, which reports results of its first fiscal quarter of 2007 later this month, is likely to announce sales of 1.8 million Macs during the three-month period, including 1.1 million notebooks, according to Goldman Sachs.



On Apple's first fiscal quarter of '07



In a research note released to clients just before this past holiday weekend, analyst David Bailey said he expects Apple to see at least a few pennies of upside versus Street consensus for its December quarter. His forecast calls for better-than-expected profit margins to drive earnings of for $0.79 per share on sales of $6.38 billion, compared to the Street's estimates of $0.78 cents on $6.38 billion.



"Across the Mac line, Apple seems to have had a exceptional Thanksgiving weekend," he wrote. "[Fourth quarter] demand for MacBook and MacBook Pro are running better than Apple?s already aggressive targets."



Bailey said his proprietary retail checks point to strong Apple store results both on the Mac and the iPod side. Combined with a higher mix of Macs, he said higher retail sales should drive upside to his gross margin forecast of 28.6 percent and Apple?s 28.25 percent target.



"Based on strong demand, at least one key supplier is allocating even more capacity to Apple and taking it away from other areas," he wrote. "Despite what has been described as a very 'healthy' video iPod forecast entering 4Q, video iPod shipments seem very much on track, and should be up more than 40 percent sequentially."



Bailey added that iPod shuffle demand also "looks strong."



Predicting new video iPod at Macworld



Looking ahead to Apple's immediate future, the analyst predicts the Cupertino-based company is heading towards a "Macworld introduction and a [first quarter] release for the full-screen video iPod which," according to his checks, "is noticeably more innovative than the current generation and should not be considered as a simple refresh."



Also at Macworld, Bailey expects Apple to formally launch its iTV digital media hub, which he believes will create a new revenue stream for the company and help it sell more video iPods.



Meanwhile, the analyst doesn't expected Apple's much rumored iPhone to be released to manufacturing until April 2007 for a "schedule [second quarter] launch."



"Indeed, Apple is already in early discussion with multiple suppliers regarding next generation models of cell phones with no decisions made yet as to which direction they?re going in," he wrote.



Reflecting strong demand and the expected Macworld announcements, Bailey reiterated his Buy rating on shares of Apple and raised his fiscal 2007 estimates for the company to $2.85 in per share earnings versus the Street consensus of $2.76.



"We are more confident that expectations have come down to more realistic levels for Macworld and earnings, creating an environment where fundamental strength should move the stock higher near term," he wrote. "We think that investors should increase their exposure to Apple shares before these events.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 20
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Reflecting strong demand and the expected Macworld announcements, Bailey reiterated his Buy rating on shares of Apple and raised his fiscal 2007 estimates for the company to $2.85 in per share earnings versus the Street consensus of $2.76.



    "We are more confident that expectations have come down to more realistic levels for Macworld and earnings, creating an environment where fundamental strength should move the stock higher near term," he wrote. "We think that investors should increase their exposure to Apple shares before these events.



    Well, I hope he's right.



    Though I see a bit more than 1.8 million Macs sold. I think closer to 1.9 million from what I see in the stores, including the new Best Buy areas here in NYC. Sales are brisk in CompUsa as well.
  • Reply 2 of 20
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Well, I hope he's right.



    Though I see a bit more than 1.8 million Macs sold. I think closer to 1.9 million from what I see in the stores, including the new Best Buy areas here in NYC. Sales are brisk in CompUsa as well.



    Macs are killing on Amazon, too. I wonder how Macs have done on Amazon in past years?
  • Reply 3 of 20
    What's the release status of Leopard? I'm excited that it's January. I can't wait to upgrade my OS.
  • Reply 4 of 20
    last quarter they sold 986,000 laptops and 624,000 desktops.

    So this quarter its 1.1M laptops and around 700,000 desktops



    not too much difference considering it was a holiday season
  • Reply 5 of 20
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Macs are killing on Amazon, too. I wonder how Macs have done on Amazon in past years?



    what I don't know about Amazon's numbers are the percentage of sales each model on the list represents.



    It's all and well and good to be number one. but if the number one model is selling 2% of the total, then with Apple's limited number of models out there, it could still represent a small percentage.



    It also doesn't have Dell in the listings as far as I know. Dell still accounts for about one third of all computers sold in the USA.



    The other question is how Amazon's customers are skewed. If they don't represent the average population, the numbers are useless.
  • Reply 6 of 20
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by psilopsyche View Post


    What's the release status of Leopard? I'm excited that it's January. I can't wait to upgrade my OS.



    You'll have to wait. If you've been following the release beta numbers from ThinkSecret, and others, you will find that many issues still have to be resolved.



    The release date is sometime in Spring. That's anywhere from March 21st to June 20th.



    I hope they DON'T rush it.



    And you really don't want to be the first to install all of the bugs and incompatabilities, do you?
  • Reply 7 of 20
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Nice confirmation by Goldman of what we suspected...
  • Reply 8 of 20
    tbagginstbaggins Posts: 2,306member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MySchizoBuddy View Post


    last quarter they sold 986,000 laptops and 624,000 desktops.

    So this quarter its 1.1M laptops and around 700,000 desktops



    not too much difference considering it was a holiday season



    The 1.8 million figure is only Goldman Sach's (conservative, IMO) prediction, not what Apple actually sold. We'll know when Apple reports, but I'd think the real number will be closer to 2 million than 1.8m. 8)





    .
  • Reply 9 of 20
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    You'll have to wait. If you've been following the release beta numbers from ThinkSecret, and others, you will find that many issues still have to be resolved.



    The release date is sometime in Spring. That's anywhere from March 21st to June 20th.



    I hope they DON'T rush it.



    And you really don't want to be the first to install all of the bugs and incompatabilities, do you?



    Thanks for the heads up melgross. I definately don't want them to rush it out either, albeit I very much look forward to playing with a new OS. As far as the bugs and incompatibilities go... yeah, I've got better things to do. I can't have it crashing my online poker software when I'm making a killing! God I'm tired... ugggh!
  • Reply 10 of 20
    Bring on the vPod already... my hopes are soaring!!! I've been waiting over two years to upgrade now...
  • Reply 11 of 20
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MySchizoBuddy View Post


    last quarter they sold 986,000 laptops and 624,000 desktops.

    So this quarter its 1.1M laptops and around 700,000 desktops



    not too much difference considering it was a holiday season



    That depends on how much of a boost they got in the last quarter from back-to-school buys, and how much of a boost they got from holiday gift-giving.
  • Reply 12 of 20
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    That depends on how much of a boost they got in the last quarter from back-to-school buys, and how much of a boost they got from holiday gift-giving.



    Supposedly, at least from what I've been reading, the back to school rush this year didn't lead to a slowdown. Rather the opposite occured. The past couple of years has seen a good jump fourth quarter, and then another big one first quarter.



    The updating of the various models also helped those who were waiting for it to decide to jump in.
  • Reply 13 of 20
    Quote:

    last quarter they sold 986,000 laptops and 624,000 desktops.

    So this quarter its 1.1M laptops and around 700,000 desktops



    not too much difference considering it was a holiday season



    erh. I think they have a shot at breaking the 2 million barrier.



    The number may fall just short. 1.8-1.9 million-ish. But that's very impressive considering that Apple can still go some way to leverage the iPod Halo and Apple Store Halo conversion rate. More iPods sold than ever before and yet more stores being opened at a fair clip!



    1.8 will seem like a conservative estimate in the quarters to come...especially with...



    Leopard!



    Adobe CS3 (long awaited? ) Will drive Mac Pro sales ( a machine that has been getting good PC press in the mags and web sites alike...)



    And of course, a new iPod video and iPhone AND...



    ...the usual round of Apple Mac refreshes! (Laptop sales are surging...)



    2007 will be the best Apple Mac year yet. Especially when the word gets out to small/medium and Enterprise business dudes that Mac can Bootcamp your Windows...



    So if 'we' do fall short of the 2million figure...



    This is just the beginning.



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 14 of 20
    Worlds away from when Mac sales were at the all time lows of 700-800k ish..? Only a mere few years ago...



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 15 of 20
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon. View Post


    erh. I think they have a shot at breaking the 2 million barrier.



    I agree. My conservative estimate is 2.1M.
  • Reply 16 of 20
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I agree. My conservative estimate is 2.1M.



    That's your CONSERVATIVE estimate? What is your maximum estimate?
  • Reply 17 of 20
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    That's your CONSERVATIVE estimate? What is your maximum estimate?



    27 trillion :-)





    seriously, it's 2.32M
  • Reply 18 of 20
    1,8xx,xxxx unit shipments projected for 2006

    1,254,000 unit shipments 2005

    http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jan/18results.html



    So for year-over-year growth (I know this isn't the usual analyst metric):



    (2006 units - 2005 units) / 2005 units * 100 = (1.8-1.2)/1.2*100 = 50%



    50%!

    Way to go, Apple. Where are the iPod Halo Effect naysayers now??
  • Reply 19 of 20
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    27 trillion :-)





    seriously, it's 2.32M



    Well brother, I'll keep my fingers crossed.
  • Reply 20 of 20
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hit$tix View Post


    1,8xx,xxxx unit shipments projected for 2006

    1,254,000 unit shipments 2005

    http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jan/18results.html



    So for year-over-year growth (I know this isn't the usual analyst metric):



    (2006 units - 2005 units) / 2005 units * 100 = (1.8-1.2)/1.2*100 = 50%



    50%!

    Way to go, Apple. Where are the iPod Halo Effect naysayers now??



    Actually, they do use quarter to quarter year to year growth numbers.



    First quarter this year vs. first quarter last year. And year over year growth.



    But the growth you mention was just for the comparative first quarters. For the year, it was much less. And this years is still an estimate, it could be more.



    This year overall, it should be more.
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