Report: Mac sales off 6% in January; iPod off 14%
January was a slow month for Apple (AAPL) — even slower than Wall Street thought it was going to be.
Mac unit sales were down 6% compared with last January, according to NPD data released Tuesday. iPod sales fared even worse, down 14% year to year.
The Street was expecting Mac sales to be off by only 4% and iPod sales off 11%, according to Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster.
In a report to clients issued Tuesday afternoon, Munster estimated that Mac sales for the March quarter (Apple's second fiscal quarter) will be somewhere between 2 and 2.2 million units. iPod sales should come in around 9 to 10 million units.
Putting an optimistic spin on the data, as he is wont to do, Munster saw the Mac numbers as "a neutral or slight positive" given the general uncertainty about the whole economy this quarter.
But, he adds, February and March could be "a tough comparison" for the Macintosh, because Mac sales last February were bolstered by the launch of the MacBook Air. There is no comparable MacBook launch expected this February.
Munster also found something to cheer about in the iPod numbers, even though he now expects unit sales to fall 6% to 15% by the end of the quarter. "Given concerns regarding iPod weakness," he writes, "we believe the segment's in-line performance relative to Street expectations is a positive." He was also pleased by the average price for iPods in January, which was up 4%. He had expected it to fall 3%.
Acknowledging that it's difficult to extrapolate iPod sales prices from one month of NPD data, Munster thinks they may have risen because the contribution of higher-priced iPod touches in the mix "may exceed our expectations in the Mar quarter."
Munster maintains a buy rating on Apple shares with a target of $180, one of the highest in the business. The stock closed Tuesday at $94.53, down 4.67% for the day.
vdb. I thought the price would keep dropping. who knew. At least i am not one of those idiots who bought at 202/share.
Blah, blah … look at Dell … they are doing MUCH better. Apple should buy Dell, sell it, and give the money back to the shareholders.
$180 a share is preposterous considering Apple is almost half that amount right now. It's a wonder that Munster has any clients. I realize that Apple isn't in any trouble and that it will weather the recession better than most companies. It's just that Wall Street always expects Apple to do far better than any other company and there is no way that can happen in this economy. In early February, some investors felt that Apple would reach $120 by March. Look at where Apple is now with only a couple of weeks to go and the market is just dropping further and further down. Apple will be lucky to be at $100 by March. People are just not buying computers except for those low-priced netbooks.
Some analysts have already said that Apple's cash reserve means abolutely nothing as far as share price is concerned. So look for Apple to stay around $90 to $100 for another month or so. And pray that it doesn't drop any lower.
I wholeheartedly agree with Chipper. The headline and intro reports the number as fact, while in truth it is merely an analyst guesstimate. Nothing affirmative as the tone of the article baits you to believe.
Some other points: 1) Unit sales drop of 6% shows "weakness" ? Interesting. 2) If average price on that 6% drop is up 4% wouldn't the economic effect be around a 2% drop ? Again, this is "weakness"?? Are we not in a recessionary period ?
$180 a share? Thats ridiculous!
To be fair though, the prices of macs are pretty ridiculous anyway.
- Jake,
@Otto Fairmont, @Linux Rocks
How dare you slander the analysts that coined the timeless expressions of adulation such as "ecosystem" (Munster), "Halo Effect" (Wu), shame on you, you infidels.
But seriously, people like Munster are as much impartial analysts as a priest is a community worker. Covering AAPL is a labour of love for them, it's like a schoolboy covering an adult toys and magazine show.
They also dont care much about the absolute performance of Apple as a company. Their main aim seems to be how to find clues that Apple is winning over its competitors and why anything, just about anything negative, is actually "good for Apple".
Same goes for most of the posters on this blog.
macdisser
you shorted in september, and you didn't buy back at 78 … don't believe you … if so then you are not smart …
Re Linux: Oh please. I was an early Mac software publisher. Proven track record. Went to top tier VCs and pitched doing a new software company doing major, mainstream applications for desktop Linux. The word rejection would be an understatement. Every single one of them said, "there is no market there."
Re Macs are toys: Oh please. We just finished editing a feature movie on a Mac 8-core in Final Cut, now doing all the opening title credits as well. Wouldn't dream of doing this on a PC.
any news on how bad things are on the PC side, with and without netbooks?
intel's preannouncement makes things look really bad.
6% down and 14 % down are a dream result for most companies in today´s environment. Apple news for sure bring a lot of peoplehere, for and against the iconic brand, but the ignorants are what I´m worried about. There are plenty.
Herman Munster is good entertainment value only. Hopefully nobody invests based on his love of Steve Jobs.
Linux adoption is much faster than Mac, and it appears that Linux will lock Apple out of Asia and Africa while seriously limiting Apple's European growth prospects.
Long on Linux, short on Apple.
Munster kills me. I'm very pro (and very long) Apple, but Munster's eternal optimism amuses even me.
That said, considering we have, like, 172% unemployment and half of us are now homeless or living in bread lines, a 6% drop in computer sales the month AFTER Christmas is not bad.
I consider this GREAT news…considering the country is imploding and Apple isn't…I mean really Elmer, how can you put a bad spin on these numbers? Mac down a whopping 6% after great growth last year? Ipod down a whopping 14% with people actually screaming for civil unrest in the coming days/weeks? Just go read all the doom and gloom out there…apple is faring pretty darn well, wouldn't you say?? Of course you won't.
So we have a YOY drop in macs at 6%, ipods at 14% and the stock price at 60%. Seems logical to me, how about you?
wow i have never seen a dewitt column with no posts. It seems i was smart in shorting apple when i did ($153/share). Well there a couple of brokerage houses that will be getting their shares back soon……hahahahahahah
Please don't publish these "stats" as fact. These are estimates only and probably wrong as usual. With the headline I assumed that Apple had come out with some statement.
180? That, over a period of a few years is probably a conservative estimate. Let's just see what happens to the price when Steve Jobs returns in July. It's only a liver transplant, not a big deal anymore now days. He WILL be back. It's the 3rd coming.