Piper: iMac refresh boosts Mac, iPhone sales off
If Piper Jaffray's survey of U.S. Apple store activity holds water, the company's second fiscal quarter might not have been as bad as some had feared.
Apple's new iMacs may have prevented its Mac division from a significant slide in its second quarter.
(Credit: Apple)Apple is getting set to report earnings for its second fiscal quarter next week, and the tech industry is watching closely to see if Apple has managed to diffuse the impact of an economy in recession for the second straight quarter. Few are expecting a blowout from Apple, but Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster is now more confident about Mac and iPhone sales for the quarter than he was in February.
Piper Jaffray watched 25 Apple retail stores around the U.S. last week, and estimated that Apple was selling an average of 22 iPhones a day and 28 Macs a day per store. Based on that data, it appears that Apple will have sold 3.7 million iPhones during the quarter and 2.2 million Macs.
On the iPhone front, 3.7 million units would be significantly less than the 4.4 million units Piper Jaffray had been expecting for the March quarter, but Munster thinks that international sales not counted in this survey could help boost the total, and did not change his estimate of 4.4 million units. The average financial analyst is expecting Apple to have sold just 3.3 million iPhones.
To this point, predicting iPhone sales has been a bit difficult without a lot of history to draw upon. But it seems that Apple watchers are settling into a seasonal pattern in which more is expected from Apple in the second half of the calendar year following the usual summer launch time frame and holiday shopping season.
On the Mac front, it still appears that Mac sales will decline year-over-year for the first time in quite awhile. Earlier this year Piper thought Q2 Mac sales could possibly dip to just 2 million units for the quarter, but based on its store checks now feels that the iMac refresh earlier this month was enough to tighten that estimate to 2.2 million units, compared to 2.3 million units sold in last year's second fiscal quarter.
So what does this mean for Apple? If Piper's estimates are correct, the company's growth is clearly not immune to broader economic trends, but nor does it seem that Apple has been hit as hard as some of its rivals. Still, Piper's estimates do not include online sales of Macs, so it's hard to know how precise they might be.
Next week will tell the real story. Apple told investors last quarter that it expects revenue of about $7.8 billion and earnings per share of about 95 cents, numbers that lots of other companies would love to post in the middle of the worst recession in a generation. That guidance would represent slight revenue growth and slight profit decline, and as just about anyone who follows Apple's financial performance knows, the company routinely lowballs its guidance only to dramatically exceed those figures 90 days later.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini told investors Tuesday that he thought the PC market had reached a bottom and the second half of the year is shaping up well, so Apple's second fiscal quarter could well be a low-water mark that isn't all that low.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
It's worthwhile to note that Piper is giving itself a wide margin with iPhone sales, predicting anywhere from 3.7 million to 4.4 million units. I think that underscores the difficulty in forecasting iPhone sales at the present time.
So the Mac sales are OFF!
So the "great" iPhone sales are OFF!
So Stevie Gods will be farting dust soon .... hopefully.
crApple .... So what! Guess crApple has run out of their niche buyers and their empty wallets and purses after having been rapped by the Apple Premium for years.
And those GREAT and HONEST Microsoft commercials are hitting home! Enjoy ********, there's dark at the end of your Fantasy Land Tunnel.
there are good mac fanboys out there
webster is degrading himself down to the level of applerocks
maybe they'll start blocking people like you from posting
MS doesn't make computers, they get money from sales of computers that other people makes, so MS is advertising for HP and Sony and later on, maybe, more companies
and they have only done latops as of now
What does this article have to do with commercials and its obviously working if its got fanboys like you in an attitude.
Well he has been edited several times for violating the TOS. and I assume that other posters have been edited as well.
Holy ****
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The explanation of the iPhone sales slipping is the expectation that there will be a new model out this summer. Is that so hard to understand?
- by Macbrewer April 16, 2009 6:44 AM PDT
- You're all guessing. Mac fanboys have a point. Mac has survived all this time because of the quality system they offered. You might think they are 'suckers' ect... you are entitled to your opinion, but they voted with their DOLLARS that is what counts. Microsoft has coasted. You all know this, that is why the PC fanboys are so upset. Finally, something is challenging the monopoly. Face the facts. Same reason we have the MS 'we are so desperate we will pay you to buy our lousy hardware' ads. Apple is resurgent. Still sales may be off in a borderline depression. Duh! That doesn't make microsoft's problems any easier to live with. Have fun using Vista 7, etc... Microsoft has lost a LOT of customers who wont' be coming back. If it makes me a fanboy to think that, then so be it.
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- by ducttape36 April 16, 2009 11:22 AM PDT
- yeah, apple survived because of that. also, the bailout microsoft gave them in the 90s when they were going bankrupt.
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- by Macbrewer April 16, 2009 12:29 PM PDT
- Ha, warped sense of history there. Microsoft was caught red-handed STEALING Quicktime code which was found to be lifted and directly put into Windoze media. Apple had them dead to rights, but choose offer them this deal which also included five years of MS Office development for Mac.
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(25 Comments)Microsoft profited from the deal, but sold the stock way too early. They could have made 10 times as much had they held onto the stock. Also, it was only 100 million dollars. A lot of money to be sure, but not for a major corporation. It mainly gave them attention on Wall Street and allowed Steve Jobs to show Bill Gates at MacWorld (very much like the old 1984 commercial). It served to rally the troops, AND rule out the prospect of Apple going under.