RSSApple Mac sales are down, but maybe not everywhere
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published February 20, 2009, 2:12 PM
Although Apple no longer seems immune to the PC industry sales slump, analyst figures released this week don't actually show the entire sales picture.
On Tuesday, analyst firm NPD Group released an estimate that Apple computer sales in US retail stores, measured in units sold, fell six percent in January from the same month last year, and that Apple's market share dropped to 13.7 percent from 16.4 percent.
A new study by ChangeWave Alliance also indicates a sales slump for Apple in certain sectors, but NPD's estimate acted as a catalyst for an immediate drop in Apple's share price.
Wall Street took a dim view of the numbers reported by NPD right away, causing Apple shares to plunge 4.7% on Tuesday, closing at $94.16. By the end of the day on Thursday, shares had taken a further nosedive to $90.64.
Meanwhile, though, some financial analysts advised their clients to think harder. The NPD estimate is "a single month's data, and it provides no information on international sales, which account for 45 percent of worldwide sales in the March quarter," wrote Charlie Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Co., in a note to his clients.
Moreover, the NPD estimate pertains only to consumer sales, and in retail stores, for that matter.
ChangeWave's new survey also shows that, during the week of February 2 - 9, 2009, among all consumers who bought a laptop PC over the past 90 days, only 20% purchased a Mac. This represented a drop of two percentage points over ChangeWave's January estimate.
Among consumers buying a desktop PC over the past 90 days, merely 15% bought a Mac, for another two-point decline. By comparison, Dell's performance was also about flat, while Hewlett-Packard did better.
"Looking at the past 90 days, sales of HP laptops (27 percent, up four points) and desktops (27 percent, up five points) have jumped," according to the report. "Purchases of Dell PCs over the past 90 days have dipped slightly -- with desktops (33 percent) dropping two points and laptops (21 percent) dipping one point."
Apple, though, outbested the other vendors in terms of customer satisfaction. "Among respondents who bought an Apple Mac over the past 90 days, 81 percent say they are Very Satisfied. This compares to a 55 percent Very Satisfied rating for Dell and 52 percent for HP."
ChangeWave also emphasizes in its report that the survey focuses exclusively on consumer sales, with a different survey on corporate buying slated for later in the month.
Further, ChangeWave's survey predicts that while sales of Apple desktops will drop another two percentage points over the next 90 days, sales of Apple laptops will edge up by three points. Not to heave all the blame onto Apple, though, since the study as a whole points to continued sales weakness across all CE vendors.
"We note that overall Consumer Electronics spending is also at the lowest levels since ChangeWave first began measuring consumer purchasing in 2002," according to the report. "Only 12 percent of respondents say they'll spend more on electronics over the next 90 days, compared to 43 percent who say they'll spend less, a clear sign of further deterioration in this space."
Yet sales of netbooks are faring well. So maybe Apple really ought to release a netbook some time soon?
"Our previous survey showed low-cost, highly portable laptops with smaller screens -- popularly known as netbooks -- are one of the few beneficiaries of this tough spending environment. The latest results reinforce this finding," according to the ChangeWave researchers. "Among respondents who have bought a laptop in the past 90 days, 17 percent say it was a netbook -- better than one in every six laptops purchased during this time period."
The real joke is this thread itself.
REAL news would be companies that are operating counter to the larger trending norm - meaning those with increased sales and revenue.
BN simply operates on an obligatory 'mention Apple in any capacity' mode to generate response.
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|all sales are down..
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|This doesn't explain their market share drop.
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|Yeah it does. Investors seem to see Apple as some sort of God-like company where they will continue to sell more PCs every quarter. Unfortunately that just can't be true. Thus why they've woken up and run away (for today).
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|Poor skinhead. People invest in Apple for the same reasons they invest in any other te3chnology company. "Godlike company"? LMAO! Not everyone lives on the level of an emotional slug like you do.
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|Sales down due to the economy would affect everyone equally, market share is a relative measurement that would be largely unaffected by such a thing as the companies emasured would all have endured similar losses in sales.
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|Exactly PC_Tool. There is a huge difference between shrinking of a certain market, and shrinking of marketshare.
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|Why buy a new machine when the Mac Pro and XServe is slated for inclusion of the i7 technology and the advent of the low power i7 models for portables will be available within a quarter?
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|"within a quarter"
You said last quarter 09 for portables.
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|actually im personally holding off for snow leopard. I want to see if they bump the hardware in a way that takes better advantage of grand central AND I want to wait until they shake the kinks out of the 17" MBP since it's a new model.
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|Poor Skinhead.
Ordinarily I'd just get to say you were stupid.
This time I get to call you a @#$% liar.
Intel has always suggested a mid 2009 (2nd-3rd quarter) release date for the low power version of the i7. If they come out later, fine. When they come out is Intel's perogative, dimwit.
Why buy a high priced model based on end of lifecycle hardware when significant performance gains are at hand for the same price.
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|I think you yourself quoted this.
Ok, so you may have said Apple will ship portables with the i7 low-power in last quarter 09, but that's a minor definition change that doesn't warrant you getting pissy.
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|Have you been him? Just being him warrants him getting pissy. ;)
Sorry, foxxy. Couldn't resist that one. :p
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|Its enough to deal with dweebs who consistently deal with IT as if the only thing that existed were their MP3 player or a desktop and a computer game, and I'll take the heat for anything I say, but it gets old when the same desktop jockies can't even quote you correctly, and I don't need to be defending what I didn't say.
Intel has projected a 2-3rd quarter release - but they will inevitably release them when THEY are ready! Whenever that may be! And I would suspect a reasonable hardware company would try to be as current with their release of the commensurate hardware as soon as possible thereafter- which could rule Apple out entirely - after all, they waited until the Core2 end of lifecycle to finally release their laptop upgrades!
And to add insult to injury, Apple seems to be so intent on chasing fashion over function that there is no telling what IO, RAM or graphics functionality will be lacking. And heaven forbid they ever figure out what biometrics are...
But if they ever come out with a laptop model that can compete functionally with the Lenovo W700 that will allow me to run multiple OSes concurrently without them being overly resource constrained at a price that is 'less than my car', I will gladly eat my words.
And BN, fix this GD interface format! Screen real estate costs you nothing! You could at least let us see the nonsensical post that we are responding to, not to mention more than 6 lines of our post.
Of course, it makes complete sense to format the posts into 1/3 of the available width instead of allowing them to use the full horizontal space while putting the name and time in one horizontal line - and all directly below the post to which it is in response - but hey - to be consistent with so many other FUBARed format facets, why would you do that?
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|"And BN, fix this GD interface format! Screen real estate costs you nothing! You could at least let us see the nonsensical post that we are responding to, not to mention more than 6 lines of our post"
Very, very much this.
And semi-yes to the horizontal width thing, but I'd more like the indented comments tree thing like you used to have, where you could tell who was replying to who after the first reply.
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|I agree with the indented response heirarchy.
Just allocate more horizontal real estate to each post and put the name/date stamp above as before.
And this vote crap...like the responses alone aren't enough to say if you agree or disagree? Oh wait, this IS BN....
Oh, and Tool -no problem - as I am traumatized here trying to figure out if I am an AIX or an Apple fanboy this morning. Let's see - so aside from the ability to run MachTen from Tenon Intersystems back in the day, to OSX (and in particular VMWare Fusion and TI's iTools), what is it exactly that I like about Apple??????
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|Well, everything. Duh.
That is the definition of fanboy, isn't it?
*evil grin*
You know you are. Just admit it. You *wish* you could be more like internetworld7. Doesn't everyone?
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|Like I said, when I can agree with how Apple does anything (with the exception of OSX which I do like for a desktop OS) I will become an Apple fanboy.
But seeing as how Apple continues to be Apple, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
But defending their right to pursue their closed proprietary approach - even if it is counterproductive to their large success in the marketplace and to respond to head up their @ss 'Windows is perfect' fanboys who still spout such misinformation as the Mac is not a PC or that Apple is a monopoly does not make me a fanboy - except a fanboy of accurate information. It does NOT imply agreement with Apple's decisions.
I just want to see desktop OSes grow up across the board and incorporate many of the features that have been standard in the upper tier OSes for decades providing for basic, commonly needed functionality.
And I won't even try to breach the internals issues - instead they can start with a simple feature like a basic backup strategy equivalent to a mksysb in AIX, as well as robust kernel level toolsets that support robust partitioning functions.
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|"defending their right to pursue their closed proprietary approach...does not make me a fanboy"
Wow...you sound more like me every day. :)
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