Black Friday: 13 Macs per hour
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster and his research team spent 10 hours counting Mac and iPhone sales in five Apple retail stores during the post-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy, and this is what they saw:
- Discounts on seven items (including some Macs but no iPhones) that averaged about 8% off.
- Mac sales that averaged 13 units per hour per store, up from 2 per hour clocked earlier in November.
- iPhone sales that averaged 3.4 per hour (not including iPhone gift cards), up from 1.3 per hour .
- Munster's conclusion: Macs are selling better than expected this holiday season; iPhone sales are in line with expectations, although they were probably undercounted.
In the "investment recommendation" section of the report, which was e-mailed to clients early Monday morning, Munster slips in an explanation of how he can maintain a target of $250 a share in the face of Apple's (AAPL) precipitous 12-month decline.
His target is based on 20 times earnings, which is in line with other analysts. But rather than using the usual EPS, based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), he's using Apple's non-GAAP earnings, which include revenue from iPhones that would otherwise be booked over two years.
Apple shares opened Monday at 89.91 and headed south in early trading.
For more holiday sales results, see Apple's Black Friday bestsellers.
No offence, but is Mr Munster going nuts placing a $250 target on stock that is around $85. Has he not seen what has happened to Apple in the latest market onslaught . I am an Apple shareholder, but am realistic to realize no matter how good the company, it cannot escape a recession driven by weak consumer spending.
Apple has over 200 retail stores. Which makes it 520 Macs per hour or about 5200 per day or around 20,000 for the whole weekend and 5500 I phones.That accounts for around 30 million revenue for the Macs ($1500 a piece)alone.
No way it would be less than 13 per hour per store. I'd be surprised not to see that many even during the regular season. Maybe it's my location, there aren't enough Apple stores in the midwest.
Excuse me? 13 macs/hr?? I hope that either (a) a few zeroes have been omitted accidentally, or (b) that number is "per salesperson" or "per register".
Any ideas?
ex ped: That's 13 per hour per store, or 65 per hour across five stores.
BestBuy in the 4 days leading up to Thanksgiving had the Macbooks at larger discounts than the Apple stores. The 2.4GHz Macbook was going for $1449.
I'll wait until the NVIDIA GPU issues are resolved. 
What region did the research team used to monitor the sales?
ex ped: I put the question to Munster. Here's his reply:
The five stores included.
Mall of America – Minneapolis
Southdale – Minneapolis
Ridgedale – Minneapolis
Rosedale – St. Paul, MN
Valley Fair – Santa Clara, CA
Guessing that we're seeing 13 Macs/hr as a total over the five stores. Correct?
ex ped: The wording of Munster's report is ambiguous, but since his Nov. 9-16 survey was clocking 2 Macs per hour and came out with a total 36 per store per day, today's report must mean 13 Macs per hour per store.
UPDATE: Confirmed with Munster: 13 per store per hour. Post updated to clarify.
AAPL's "precipitous" 12-month decline has more to do with general panic about the recession than any problem with Apple. Apple has $25/share CASH to weather out bad quarters– and they don't SEEM to be having one.
How many Iphones sold on black friday per hour?
ex ped: 3.4 per hour per store.