Education, business markets lag for Apple
While the consumer market continues to shine for Apple, bringing the company to another record quarter, sales in the education and professional markets have suffered for the Mac maker during the ongoing economic recession.
Apple COO Tim Cook revealed during Tuesday's earnings report conference call that Mac sales in both the U.S. education and business markets have slowed due to budget constraints in both sectors.
In overall educational sales, Apple was down 6 percent. Cook said grades kindergarten through 12 fared worse, while higher education sales in colleges were about even with the same period a year prior.
Cook said things could turn around for Mac purchases in the educational sector when federal economic stimulus funds make their way down to individual schools. However, the executive said he is not confident that will happen in the coming September quarter.
"The U.S. K-12 institutional business is weak," Cook said. "As you might expect, and it?s getting hit by budget shortfalls, and last quarter we saw very negligible amount, if any, of the stimulus funds flow all the way to the state and district levels to get spent. So that may or may not occur this quarter."
Meanwhile, commercial and small business accounts are delaying purchases on new Macs, in an attempt to pinch pennies wherever they can. No specific data on business accounts was provided.
However, Cook said iPhone sales in the corporate, government and educational sectors are showing positive signs. Sales have been excellent with small businesses and large organizations that allow people to purchase phones for individual use.
The COO added almost 20 percent of Fortune 100 companies have purchased 10,000 iPhones or more, and over 300 higher education institutions have approved the device. Multiple corporations and government agencies have purchased more than 25,000 units.
Some schools, such as the University of Florida's PharmD program, have taken to requiring the iPhone or iPod touch for class.
"We think that we are just at the tip of the iceberg," Cook said, "in terms of what the iPhone can do with the business customer."
Apple COO Tim Cook revealed during Tuesday's earnings report conference call that Mac sales in both the U.S. education and business markets have slowed due to budget constraints in both sectors.
In overall educational sales, Apple was down 6 percent. Cook said grades kindergarten through 12 fared worse, while higher education sales in colleges were about even with the same period a year prior.
Cook said things could turn around for Mac purchases in the educational sector when federal economic stimulus funds make their way down to individual schools. However, the executive said he is not confident that will happen in the coming September quarter.
"The U.S. K-12 institutional business is weak," Cook said. "As you might expect, and it?s getting hit by budget shortfalls, and last quarter we saw very negligible amount, if any, of the stimulus funds flow all the way to the state and district levels to get spent. So that may or may not occur this quarter."
Meanwhile, commercial and small business accounts are delaying purchases on new Macs, in an attempt to pinch pennies wherever they can. No specific data on business accounts was provided.
However, Cook said iPhone sales in the corporate, government and educational sectors are showing positive signs. Sales have been excellent with small businesses and large organizations that allow people to purchase phones for individual use.
The COO added almost 20 percent of Fortune 100 companies have purchased 10,000 iPhones or more, and over 300 higher education institutions have approved the device. Multiple corporations and government agencies have purchased more than 25,000 units.
Some schools, such as the University of Florida's PharmD program, have taken to requiring the iPhone or iPod touch for class.
"We think that we are just at the tip of the iceberg," Cook said, "in terms of what the iPhone can do with the business customer."
Comments
As for the iPhone- shouldn't that be penetrating at a higher rate than 20% by now as compared to market share?
As for the U of Fl line - that's appears as if dropped in from an different article entirely. Note how the article then shifts right back to business. Cook is not adressing that. One school and one department program is not something I'd exactly brag about.What other schools are requiring iPhone or Touches for classes anyway? I'm curious.
Well I guess you can't have it both ways. You can't offer premium products at premium prices and try to appeal to public schools at the same time. I mean does BMW or Mercedes Benz supply our schools with cars for driver's education?
Well I think if they were serious, they'd go back to the strategy they used to have of selling discounted models specifically for education clients - ie. eMac, 17" iMac etc.
Well I guess you can't have it both ways. You can't offer premium products at premium prices and try to appeal to public schools at the same time. I mean does BMW or Mercedes Benz supply our schools with cars for driver's education?
Well Mercedes does provide school busses. Does that count?
Well I think if they were serious, they'd go back to the strategy they used to have of selling discounted models specifically for education clients - ie. eMac, 17" iMac etc.
With or without a glossy screen?
Well Mercedes does provide school busses. Does that count?
True- And I'm sure lots of faculty and deans use Macs.
I wasn't aware Dell was the leader in education sales???? Or is this just Techstudian math?
I meant to say I suspect- I said based on the low pricing.
So then, you who must know so much-tell us , who is?
Well I think if they were serious, they'd go back to the strategy they used to have of selling discounted models specifically for education clients - ie. eMac, 17" iMac etc.
Apple has a 20" educational iMac (Aluminum) for $800. The MacBook is also around $800. Plus if you order a bunch, Apple will discount the already discounted price. Plus, if you're just updating the computer part, you can always get MacMini's for less than $700.
Plain and simple, schools are just poor these days.
I meant to say I suspect- I said based on the low pricing.
So then, you who must know so much-tell us , who is?
That would ummm....Apple! Believe it or not...Yes, its Apple! Go figure!
Just because they're lagging in sales, doesn't mean they're not #1. Toyota's sales are lagging too...that doesn't mean they're not #1 in automotive sales.
That would ummm....Apple! Believe it or not...Yes, its Apple! Go figure!
Link please.
Just because they're lagging in sales, doesn't mean they're not #1. Toyota's sales are lagging too...that doesn't mean they're not #1 in automotive sales.
Then I find it rather interesting that the article doesn't mention what you write. Why wasn't that mentioned? Seems a rather important fact to me.
Pepsi is the #1 supplier of tampons to mice. Find you a link that proves it? NO, YOU find me a link that proves it WRONG! dERrrrrrr
In any case, institutional budget cuts are institutional budget cuts. It's a recession, after all, and the comsumer market is an entirely different beast.
If our academic insitutions aren't investing in Macs, the students and faculty certainly are.
Show me a link that proves it wrong....
Not that a disagree with you, but show us a link that proves you right. No one here other than teckstud claimed who the leader was, and his was just an assumption, which I would have the same one. It's not our job to do your research.
This obviously will impact sales to households with K-12 students and no college students, which I believe is partly to blame for the K-12 sales weakness?
Well I guess you can't have it both ways. You can't offer premium products at premium prices and try to appeal to public schools at the same time. I mean does BMW or Mercedes Benz supply our schools with cars for driver's education?
Depends on the TCO of the product.
http://www.cio.com/article/127050/Ei...d_Use_Mac_OS/1
Education build machines are a bit higher for the Mac than for Windows but the prices are more comparable than you might expect.
"Standard Costs[1]
Ø Desktop - $ 2,954 (Windows), $3,254 (Mac)
Ø Laptop - $3,342 (Windows), $3,646 (Mac)"
[1] Based on purchasing data received from Information Technology staff
$300 delta between Macs and PCs...or about 10%.
Given that:
"80 percent of costs in distributed computing environments are incurred after the initial deployment of hardware and software"
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Tec.../TCO-13-18.PDF
The cost of Macs aren't as much an issue as the lack of budgets to buy anything. The study is old and they didn't really talk much about Mac TCO vs PC TCO beyond that $8 per seat were attributable to having Macs.
"The adjustments made to the Complexity and Best Practice elements impacted by the support of the Mac platform did not identify a measurable difference in indirect cost. Based on this analysis, there is less than 1% impact on TCO due to the support of multiple platforms, and thus multiple platforms are not a cost driver."
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Tec.../TCO-19-34.PDF
They, unfortunately, punted on whether a 100% mac install would have been cheaper.
Not that a disagree with you, but show us a link that proves you right. No one here other than teckstud claimed who the leader was, and his was just an assumption, which I would have the same one. It's not our job to do your research.
Its not my job to do your research either.... There is no recent data...but the latest data I find shows Apple is #1 in sales.
http://9to5mac.com/Apple_beats_Dell
#1 for Europe as well according to the most recent data I find:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080300408.html
Its not my job to do your research either....
It's your job to back up something you state as fact - unless you're making it up and can't.