Macs, iPods face disintegrating third quarter
updated 03:45 pm EDT, Mon May 18, 2009
Mac decline to continue
Apple may be facing a second consecutive quarter of decline in Mac sales as gauged year-over-year, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster suggests. The analyst cites new statistics from NPD Group, which show that April shipments fell 1.8 percent versus the same period in 2008. Although not as harsh as the 5 to 10 percent initially called for by Piper, the drop could foretell substantial problems with the rest of Q3, using assumptions about sales behavior in May and June.
Quarterly shipments could slide by as much as 8 to 16 percent, a factor worse than Street estimates of 7 to 10 percent. Either figure would be worse than the results of Apple's second financial quarter, which saw Mac sales dip by only 3 percent. Poor performance is being blamed on the global recession, which has until recently done little to affect Apple's profits.
Compounding problems are new NPD figures on iPods, which show that player sales plummeted 9 percent in April. Similarly, while average selling prices remained consistent for Macs, the same value for iPods dropped 11 percent. Apple will likely ship 9.5 to 10.5 million iPods during Q309, according to Munster, as compared to the 11 million reached in Q308. Apple has not seen a slump in year-over-year iPod figures since the product's 2001 introduction.
Up and away.
05/18, 04:09pm reply
Apple shares up 3.8 points on this report - seems like Wall Street continues to be impressed.
And with Vista practically flushed by its competitor, it seems like MacOS is only viable OS on the market.
Jittery Jimmy
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Joined: Jan 2006
don't believe it
05/18, 04:22pm reply
the uptick in stocks that is. Sell around 130-ish and buy back in on the dip that is inevitably coming for all stocks.
climacs
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Joined: Sep 2001
thanks
05/18, 04:54pm reply
Your free stockpicking advice is worth exactly what I paid for it.
Personally, I like the dramatic headline for this story. A "disintegrating" quarter is a new one for me. Sounds very catastrophic for a situation where shipments "could" slide by 8-16 percent.
Maybe tomorrow we can tune in for the upbeat article says that shipments "could" rocket up 5 to 14.7343%.
malax
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2006
1.8% is Disintigrating?
05/18, 05:08pm reply
How FRACK! The SKY is FALLING!
Seriously, folks. What the h***?
It sounds more like a slight decline or an insignificant decline compared to the rest of the industry, doesn't it?
Chill!
Eriamjh
Addicted to MacNN
Joined: Oct 2001
fine don't listen
05/18, 06:08pm reply
check out all the option-ARMs recasting over the next two years, that wave of foreclosures is going to wash over the RE market, that's going to kick the banks in the butt again (those invested in CDO) as well as anyone else still on the wrong end of a CDS.
Unemployment still soaring.
Commercial real estate about to get a swift kick in the junk.
I'm an AAPL fanboy but this rally is not really founded on any sound market fundamentals, just the recent absence of disastrously bad news. A 'relief' rally which will turn into a 'panic' sell-off once the banks announce later this year they have lost even more money.
climacs
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Joined: Sep 2001
Hackintosh
05/18, 06:46pm (2 replies) reply
I know this post is going to get a lot of negative votes for this. Now that the Mac userbase isn't growing anymore, isn't it time to release osX for PC clones?
Makes perfect sense with this economic, the hackingtoshes work great with the latest updates and MS would get hurt real bad if Apple would manage to grab an extra 10% of the PC sales. The iPod/iPhone/iTablet is clearly the future for Apple but having a large Mac userbase is extremely important for the future of these devices.
Peter Bonte
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Joined: Aug 2001
re: fine don't listen
05/18, 06:59pm (2 replies) reply
When investors sell-off bank options, don't they want to reinvest that money in a safe company? I would imagine that investors are handpicking company's that are somewhat crisis-resistant and Apple is certainly on there radar. The money has to go somewhere and in times when a normal bank-account isn't safe anymore company's like Apple seem like a smart investment.
Peter Bonte
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
see
05/19, 10:18am reply
People said it was safe, but it is obvious that it wasn't. The side-effects of that supercollider in Europe simulating the big bang has finally been seen. The third quarter is disintegrating, probably into a temporal fracture in the space-time continuum. Soon, it will over take the entire solar system.
Damn you science!
testudo
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Joined: Aug 2001