Apple did fairly well during its Black Friday sales event in spite of terrible economic conditions, claims Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu. While Apple is said to have kept to its normal discounts, hovering between 5 and 10 percent, checks with distributors and retail are said to show evidence of "strong" traffic at Apple outlets. Third-party vendors are said to have contributed even further, making cuts of 11 to 13 percent, while sometimes bundling accessories or gift cards for iPod buyers.

Wu comments that Black Friday typically accounts for just 10 percent of Apple's holiday sales, but that it can be representative of greater trends. A good sign in this regard is said to Amazon and the iPod touch; while Amazon usually has lead times of one to two days on Touches, stock is now said to be extremely low, resulting in leads of 11 days for 8GB models and three to five weeks for 16GB players. This may be particularly good given the Touch's status as Apple's most expensive iPod, Wu notes.

Kaufman is retaining its estimates for the December quarter, amounting to $10 billion in revenue with $1.47 in EPS. Shipments are expected to divide into 21 million iPods, 2.7 million Macs and 6 million iPhones; critically, the iPod figure would represent a 5 percent decline year-over-year, marking decreased importance of the product to the company's bottom line.