New iMac models with upgraded CPUs & displays to drive 1M unit sales in Q3, analyst says

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited September 2015
Apple is expected to grow iMac sales to one million units during the upcoming quarter on the back of new, more powerful models with enhanced display technology, according to well-connected KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.




In a note to investors obtained by AppleInsider on Sunday, Kuo said he expects iMac sales to grow 100 percent quarter-over-quarter, ending the upcoming September period with one million units shipped.

Spurring sales will be new models featuring faster processors and "much better" display quality, Kuo said. Last October Apple introduced one of the highest-resolution screens available in an all-in-one machine with its 5K iMac. This year, Kuo predicts a focus on image quality, specifically color saturation enhancements with a new LED phosphor material called KSF.

Kuo gave no indication that rumors regarding an 8K iMac were valid. In a press release in April, Apple display supplier LG suggested a super high-resolution iMac would debut later in 2015, though Apple has yet to announce any such device.

Accounting for at least part of iMac's sequential sales growth is a lower than normal base established over the trailing quarter, which Kuo attributes to inventory corrections on Apple's part. Also playing a factor will be upcoming promotional pricing and standard price reductions that sometimes come alongside product refreshes.

According to market research firm IDC, Apple was the only computer manufacturer to see positive growth in quarter two, yet again bucking a declining worldwide PC market. Apple revealed during a recent quarterly results conference call for investors that Mac sales jumped 9 percent year-over-year.

If Apple sticks to its anual product cycle, new iMacs could reach store shelves in time for the holidays.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 57
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    5K (or 8K) Skylake iMac with TB3 and USBc and I'll walk into the store today!
  • Reply 2 of 57
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member

    How do you get "much better" than a 5K display?

     

    Are they seriously suggesting that the rumour that Apple will go 8K with the iMac is correct?

     

    I know nothing about display procurement, but if 8K significantly adds to the 5K price I think Apple should hold off another year. Customers this fall will be very price-conscious.

  • Reply 3 of 57
    aaronjaaronj Posts: 1,595member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post

     

    How do you get "much better" than a 5K display?


     

    Well, it seems like this is what they are talking about, if these rumors are even true, that is (emphasis mine):

     

    Quote:


     Last October Apple introduced one of the highest-resolution screens available in an all-in-one machine with its 5K iMac. This year, Kuo predicts a focus on image quality, specifically color saturation enhancements with a new LED phosphor material called KSF.


     

    I've been looking to update my iMac for a while now.  I could see a significantly improved display to be the final straw for me.  It would definitely make Lara Croft look better when I kill her every few minutes in the new game (I actually had to take a break -- I was feeling guilty! LOL). :)

  • Reply 4 of 57
    son3son3 Posts: 7member
    Been waiting a while for this!
    Time to upgrade my 2009 Mini.
  • Reply 5 of 57
    jdwjdw Posts: 1,324member
    Long ago, before the iPod and iPhone, professionals were an important target customer for Apple. But that hasn't been true for a long while, despite the "can't innovate my ass" cylindrical Mac Pro. As such, most iMac buyers probably wouldn't notice any improvement from "KSF" LED phosphor tech. One thing that would be noticeable would be BETTER COOLING. Everyone enjoys less noise. Fan noise is no fun. Although the 4-core Mac Pro loses in many quick benchmark tests to the iMac, long renders or other heavy CPU utilization will increase the heat of the iMac much faster than a Mac Pro, causing the iMac to decrease it's clock speed accordingly, and all the while the iMacs fans are blasting. Heat doesn't drop the clock speed of Mac Pros so much because they are much better cooled. And although SkyLake may run cooler, Apple should find a way to keep the iMac cooler. Or they could just beef up the CPU in the Mac Pro, halve the cost, and then we can buy that instead. :-)
  • Reply 6 of 57
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member

    Sounds exciting. Would be nice if they made a new standalone Mac monitor too. I am using an ASUS monitor with my MBP but would have bought an Apple monitor if they had something newer than the current 2011 version.

  • Reply 7 of 57
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by JDW View Post



    Long ago, before the iPod and iPhone, professionals were an important target customer for Apple. But that hasn't been true for a long while, despite the "can't innovate my ass" cylindrical Mac Pro. As such, most iMac buyers probably wouldn't notice any improvement from "KSF" LED phosphor tech. One thing that would be noticeable would be BETTER COOLING. Everyone enjoys less noise. Fan noise is no fun. Although the 4-core Mac Pro loses in many quick benchmark tests to the iMac, long renders or other heavy CPU utilization will increase the heat of the iMac much faster than a Mac Pro, causing the iMac to decrease it's clock speed accordingly, and all the while the iMacs fans are blasting. Heat doesn't drop the clock speed of Mac Pros so much because they are much better cooled. And although SkyLake may run cooler, Apple should find a way to keep the iMac cooler. Or they could just beef up the CPU in the Mac Pro, halve the cost, and then we can buy that instead. :-)



    It sounds like you're wanting the iMac to be treated as a professional-level machine, when in reality it is not, and never has been.  Your issues with it are exactly what the Mac Pro is meant to address.



    Most iMac users will never crank-up their machines to fan-blasting levels consistently.  Sure, there may be the occasional one, but should Apple engineer the systems to address the 1-2% of those times?  I don't think so.



    I occasionally get the fans going on my 2009 iMac when I'm working on some serious photography edits in Lightroom and Photoshop.  That's maybe once every week or two.  All the other times, it's used as my workstation for coding.  Completely acceptable to me.  On those rare occasions I play a video game on it (rare), it takes quite a bit to get those fans going.  At least Apple makes a concerted effort to make the fans as quite as possible.



    I'm happy with their design.  It's efficient, looks good, and fast for its market segment.  Done.  Skylake will make it even better from what I continue to read.  Bring it on!



     

  • Reply 8 of 57
    mr omr o Posts: 1,046member

    Is there any chance of a 23 inch iMac with retina display?

     

    21.5 inch is a tad too small, 27 inch way too big.

  • Reply 9 of 57
    doncamdoncam Posts: 1member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post

    If Apple sticks to its anual product cycle, new iMacs could reach store shelves in time for the holidays.

     

    What time period does "the holidays" refer to? Is it Christmas? (we don't really use this term in the UK). Also do new mac models tend to release in UK at same time as US?

  • Reply 10 of 57
    wingswings Posts: 261member
    A 5K Mac? Heck, that's nothing. I remember when there was a 128K Mac.
  • Reply 11 of 57
    "Well Connected Insider"...
  • Reply 12 of 57
    jkichlinejkichline Posts: 1,369member
    I think Apple needs to come out with a 4-5K Apple Cinema Display. That's something that's seriously lacking in their lineup. I bought an LG UltraWide monitor instead and it's great but I would have preferred an Apple product with the built in TB hub.
  • Reply 13 of 57
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    frank777 wrote: »
    How do you get "much better" than a 5K display?
    As the article suggested through higher saturation and improvements to other features. Just because you have a 5K display doesn't mean you have an extremely high quality display.
    Are they seriously suggesting that the rumour that Apple will go 8K with the iMac is correct?
    err no they seem to be discounting it here. At least there was nothing supporting the idea from this source on this day.
    I know nothing about display procurement, but if 8K significantly adds to the 5K price I think Apple should hold off another year. Customers this fall will be very price-conscious.

    Expect prices to come down just like they have in the past.
  • Reply 14 of 57
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    jkichline wrote: »
    I think Apple needs to come out with a 4-5K Apple Cinema Display. That's something that's seriously lacking in their lineup. I bought an LG UltraWide monitor instead and it's great but I would have preferred an Apple product with the built in TB hub.

    I agree.
  • Reply 15 of 57
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member

    The iMac 5K is well good enough in the colour department. One area where LCDs still haven't caught the Kuro TVs is how they display black levels.

  • Reply 16 of 57
    damn_its_hotdamn_its_hot Posts: 1,209member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Wings View Post



    A 5K Mac? Heck, that's nothing. I remember when there was a 128K Mac.



    Don't forget you could fairly easily add or replace chips to make it a 512K Fat Mac (before that was a product) as long as you didn't care about yor warranty and had pretty good skills with a soldering iron.

     

    Note: the 128K Mac video ram came out of the heap for the whole machine which meant you only had use 106.1K RAM after the mono display, then there was the system, low mem globals, overhead of handles, etc...

     

    Today's (released) iMac has a measly 2 GB GDDR5 RAM for the video which is 8.9 x 10e +25 times the 128K total storage. :wow:

  • Reply 17 of 57
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Meanwhile every tech journalist out there, other than the very few Apple aficionados, are writing ten page articles in praise of Windows 10 to try to save PC sales in hopes they will have a job in a few years. Having used the aforementioned OS since it first came out in beta and found it to be 8.1 with things moved about with a Siri copy, the same old crap otherwise, I would advise them to buy a new iMac and start learning. :D
  • Reply 18 of 57
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    ireland wrote: »
    The iMac 5K is well good enough in the colour department. One area where LCDs still haven't caught the Kuro TVs is how they display black levels.

    I wonder if this new white laser technology may be on Apple's radar. Better than LED and OLED apparently.
  • Reply 19 of 57
    sflocal wrote: »

    It sounds like you're wanting the iMac to be treated as a professional-level machine, when in reality it is not, and never has been.  Your issues with it are exactly what the Mac Pro is meant to address.


    Most iMac users will never crank-up their machines to fan-blasting levels consistently.  Sure, there may be the occasional one, but should Apple engineer the systems to address the 1-2% of those times?  I don't think so.


    I occasionally get the fans going on my 2009 iMac when I'm working on some serious photography edits in Lightroom and Photoshop.  That's maybe once every week or two.  All the other times, it's used as my workstation for coding.  Completely acceptable to me.  On those rare occasions I play a video game on it (rare), it takes quite a bit to get those fans going.  At least Apple makes a concerted effort to make the fans as quite as possible.


    I'm happy with their design.  It's efficient, looks good, and fast for its market segment.  Done.  Skylake will make it even better from what I continue to read.  Bring it on!


     

    Apple continues to treat the Mac Pro like a stepchild. The iMac will trash the Mac Pro in many performance aspects, especially the lower end models. I don't know of anyone who wanted Apple to make the iMac look like a CRT again with that design.
    Meanwhile every tech journalist out there, other than the very few Apple aficionados, are writing ten page articles in praise of Windows 10 to try to save PC sales in hopes they will have a job in a few years. Having used the aforementioned OS since it first came out in beta and found it to be 8.1 with things moved about with a Siri copy, the same old crap otherwise, I would advise them to buy a new iMac and start learning. :D

    Blah, blah, blah. Windows 10 works fine.
  • Reply 20 of 57
    appexappex Posts: 687member
    Bring Intel Skylake with Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Type C.
    Do not forget the wired Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad with two USB 3.1 ports.
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