Apple trounces Microsoft in Black Friday retail traffic, purchases
A comparison of Apple and Microsoft retail stores on Black Friday found that nearly 5 times as many items were purchased per hour at the Apple Store.
Gene Munster and his team at Piper Jaffray conducted 8 hours of observations at Apple retail stores in Minneapolis last Friday, also known as the U.S. retail shopping holiday "Black Friday." They found that traffic was up 31 percent year over year, an improvement likely driven by shoppers wanting an opportunity to see new new iPad mini.
Their time spent at the Apple Store found that an average of 17.2 items were purchased per hour. In comparison, two hours spent outside a Microsoft Store found that 3.5 items were purchased per hour ? and none of those were of the new Surface tablet. In fact, all but two of the purchases from the Microsoft store were games for its Xbox game console.
Munster also said that hourly traffic at the Microsoft Store was 47 percent less than traffic seen at Apple's retail store. Both locations are located across from each other at Mall of America in Minneapolis ??one of the most famous malls in the country.
While Munster saw the sales and traffic at Apple's store as a positive, he also noted that the most popular version of the iPad mini ? the 16-gigabyte model ? was in limited supply. He also said that Mac sales appear to be affected by the new iPad, as well as a potential slowdown ahead of the launch of the newly redesigned iMac.
In all, Munster and his team counted sales of 11 iPads per hour at the Apple Store. That was down from 14.8 iPads per hour counted last year, but Munster isn't concerned, as many sales have simply moved online.
He believes that total iPad sales, including the full-size 9.7-inch model and the new 7.9-inch variety, will be up 62 percent year over year.
Gene Munster and his team at Piper Jaffray conducted 8 hours of observations at Apple retail stores in Minneapolis last Friday, also known as the U.S. retail shopping holiday "Black Friday." They found that traffic was up 31 percent year over year, an improvement likely driven by shoppers wanting an opportunity to see new new iPad mini.
Their time spent at the Apple Store found that an average of 17.2 items were purchased per hour. In comparison, two hours spent outside a Microsoft Store found that 3.5 items were purchased per hour ? and none of those were of the new Surface tablet. In fact, all but two of the purchases from the Microsoft store were games for its Xbox game console.
Munster also said that hourly traffic at the Microsoft Store was 47 percent less than traffic seen at Apple's retail store. Both locations are located across from each other at Mall of America in Minneapolis ??one of the most famous malls in the country.
While Munster saw the sales and traffic at Apple's store as a positive, he also noted that the most popular version of the iPad mini ? the 16-gigabyte model ? was in limited supply. He also said that Mac sales appear to be affected by the new iPad, as well as a potential slowdown ahead of the launch of the newly redesigned iMac.
In all, Munster and his team counted sales of 11 iPads per hour at the Apple Store. That was down from 14.8 iPads per hour counted last year, but Munster isn't concerned, as many sales have simply moved online.
He believes that total iPad sales, including the full-size 9.7-inch model and the new 7.9-inch variety, will be up 62 percent year over year.
Comments
> "shoppers wanting an opportunity to see new new iPad mini."
Not surprising at all. Microsoft has almost nothing to sell to the consumer. I don't know why they have stores.
No desktop or laptop, no tablet or cell phones nothing except xBox and MS Office.
People who buy Windows 8 Phones buy them at the cell phone stores or electronic stores.
Microsoft makes money selling to businesses.
That doesn't explain the drop.
Not according to their marketing pics on their website:
easy to mock up, of course
And if you really want to read a pathetic one-liner, see their page on the Microsoft Store here
Agree. I am curious if the delay was deliberate, in order to move holiday sales more towards tablets. It may be better to sell a family three tablets rather than one iMac.
However, I was at a store for about 30 minutes, and did notice a fair bit of activity in the new computer set up area-- three computers at the peak, so I am not sure how convinced I would be in terms of extrapolating quarter sales.
As for the idea that you don't get meaningful data in 8 hours, I will offer this: in 2003-4, I would spend a timed 15 minutes outside of the Stockton Street San Francisco store once every month or so to watch iPod and Mac sales-- to justify my optimism in the stock. You can actually see quite a bit in a short period-- lots of traffic, or are people actually buying things.
Not having any iMacs to sell doesn't explain the drop?
who in their right mind goes to a Microsoft store? To see some horrid Windows 8 laptop/tablet hybrid which fails hard at both? Perhaps to see a Windows Phone with a totally unusable, fugly OS that no one uses? Or perhaps to see a XBox360 RROD (50%+ failure rate)? Not to mention they can see all the Microsoft crap at Best Buy, HHGregg, etc...
Oh god. While I have no doubt about the core of the story, this is hardly a viable sample size. He observed a few stores in one metro area? Next you'll tell me if I stand in the airport, I can conclude that 96% of the people in there are indeed travelling to another city?
These analysts are ridiculous.
I'm sure his numbers for that metro area are correct. In fact, I'm sure it's accurate pretty much anywhere. But to extrapolate his "data" from such a small sample onto the larger population isn't really telling the whole story.
EDIT. A better analogy would be me standing in the Tampa airport. I can then conclude that 96% of the people in Tampa hate the city and are leaving for a better place.
I could have come to the same conclusion after 8 seconds. I wonder where in the world is that pack Microsoft store? I only seen a few but there were always empty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by island hermit
Not having any iMacs to sell doesn't explain the drop?
What mac drop BTW? I went 3 times at the Apple store on black friday and they were selling more mac's than ipads. It must have been because the mac rebate was decent but still.
I think the imac will have significant numbers this quarter because a lot of people are waiting for them. That is assuming Apple can meet demand, but I expect the imacs to sell out until january.
Simple: Because Apple has stores.
If you look at 2008 and 2009 there is a marked difference. This type of analysis is better for higher volume items and lower priced items. When it comes to a product with an APR of $1200 or more I just don't think Black Friday is the most likely time people will buy a Mac for themselves or someone else.
That yellow shirt is awful. MS really needs to work on at.
1) I like Windows Phone. It doesn't have the ecosystem I want and it's world's away from iOS but if I couldn't get an iPhone my next choice would be a Nokia Lumia.
2) If I needed a WinPC I'd consider getting one at an MS Store.One good thing about their PCs is they don't come with any crap ware. Sure, you could wipe the drive and start anew but that can time consuming it you have to hunt down drivers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ankleskater
That doesn't explain the drop.
More shoppers are probably buying online to avoid stock-outs.
No, it doesn't, not unless iMacs were outselling MacBooks significantly last year. Unless I am wrong, Macs include MacBooks.
It is possible this is an outlier. But buying patterns, like voting, are often predictable from small sample sets. And, in order not to insult Minnesotans, I am prepared to assume they are representative of the whole country
Then, wouldn't we see a similar decreases across all product lines?
No, it cannot. Some, but not all. If it is all about online shopping, we should see some consistent changes amongst product lines.