Slash LanePreliminary figures for the PC sales released by market research firm NPD on Monday indicate that sales of Macs in the United States rose 26% year-over-year in July, which puts the Mac maker on a pace to meet consensus estimates of 4.5 million total sales for the three-month period ending September.
Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, attributed the rise to new Mac products but warned that it will be more challenging for Apple to maintain such growth throughout the quarter, as the company saw 29% and 20% respective growth rates during August and September of 2010, compared to July's 14%.
"We believe Mac sales benefited from the 7/20 launch of OS X Lion along with refreshed MacBook Airs and Mac minis," he said. "But these tailwinds will fade throughout the September quarter and year-over-year compares get slightly tougher in the last two months of the quarter."
Performing his own extrapolation and analysis of the NPD data, Munster estimates that Apple is pacing to sell 4.4 million to 4.6 million Macs during the September quarter — both of which would represent a quarterly best.
Meanwhile, Munster noted that sales of iPods during the month of July fell just 15%, which was better than the 24% he had been modeling. He said the figures suggest Apple's quarterly iPod sales will fall to just 7.2 to 7.7 million for the quarter.
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58 Comments
I'd attribute it to the new MacBook Air more than Lion per se. The 2010 model sold well during its first quarter, but slowed down a bit after the 2011 MacBook Pros came out. Now the MacBook Air is competitive again, and more compelling for many than the Pro.
I remember when iPod sales were all analysts talked about. Now the decline of iPod sales means nothing.
HP shareholders must be weeping into their losses.
How come Apple can be profitable with PC's? Just goes to show that the race to the bottom caused by determination to drop prices is not the key to longterm success.
What I'm wondering about is; how many trackpads Apple sold along with those new Lion copies. I for one bought Lion for my iMac (2007) and realized that I needed a Magic Trackpad if I wanted to enjoy Lion to its fullest. And boy, was I right. I can't imagine operating Lion without one.
Actually, it's because everyone was trying to snap up Snow Leopard machines before they were forced to use the horrible Lion. Disastrous Address Book and iCal, anyone? Thank God for BusyCal, but there are no viable Address Book alternatives.