“Apple Computer reports fourth-quarter earnings later Tuesday, but it’s what the company says on Wednesday that may grab investors’ attention this week,” Troy Wolverton reports for TheStreet.com. “Apple has scheduled a press event Wednesday where analysts expect CEO Steve Jobs to unveil a new, video-enabled iPod music player. The move would mark a significant evolution for the iPod, which has rapidly become one of Apple’s most important products.”
Wolverton reports, “The focus on Wednesday is emblematic of investor attitudes toward the stock. The general assumption is that the company is doing well, but that notion is dwarfed by the anticipation of — or even concern about — what comes next. It’s not so much ‘What have you done for me lately?’ but ‘What will you do for me later?'”
“Wall Street is betting that Apple was on track with that growth in its fourth quarter, which ended last month. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call are expecting the company to post earnings of 37 cents a share for the quarter on $3.73 billion in sales,” Wolverton reports. “That projection is ahead of the company’s own estimates and would mark a big gain over last year’s results… But Wall Street has reason to be bullish. Apple has consistently delivered better-than-expected results in quarters of late. And recent data bode well for the just-completed one; studies indicate that Apple is gaining share in markets for PCs and digital-music players.”
“Through August, Apple’s share of the U.S. retail market for computers, excluding online sales, grew to 6.6% from 4.3% in the same period last year, according to market researcher NPD Group,” Wolverton reports. “And even without taking into account sales of the newly introduced iPod nano, Apple’s share of the U.S. retail market for digital-music players edged upward in recent months to 74%.”
Full article here.
Keep in mind that excluding online sales also excludes Dell. Note that it also excludes Apple’s online sales. The important fact is that NPD’s measure of Apple’s share was 4.3% in the year ago period and it has grown to 6.6% in a year.
Related articles:
Analysts expect strong Mac sales in Apple’s latest quarter – October 10, 2005
Anticipation excruciating as the perfect Apple storm looms – October 09, 2005
Anticipation builds for October 11 Apple Q4 05 earnings report, analysts expect strong Mac sales – October 06, 2005
Apple invites media to ‘One More Thing’ special event on October 12 – October 04, 2005
Apple to webcast Q4 05 earnings results conference call on October 11 – October 03, 2005
Bear Stearns: ‘We see Apple making further PC share gains,’ raises price target to $58 – September 23, 2005
Gartner: Apple grows shipments 31 percent in Q2 2005, moves from 5th to 4th in U.S. market share – July 18, 2005
IDC: Apple gains U.S. market share at double overall market rate, up to 4.5 percent for Q2 2005 – July 18, 2005
What does that mean ‘excluding online sales’? Isn’t that sort of like stating that the average temperature of the Earth is 20K, excluding the radiation of the sun? It may technically be true, but what the hell connection does it have to practical reality?
As of 10:17 EDT, the Music store on iTunes has not updated its new releases. Still showing latest release date as Oct 4. Hmmmm?
6.6% of retail (non-online) sales.
How many computers does Dell sell from mall kiosks compared to corporate leases, direct phone sales, and their website? what about Apple for that matter?
This statistic is of minimal use because it excludes a major, if not the most common, way of buying a computer!
MDN word: areas
My car averages 0mpg when I exclude fuel.
Yeah, let’s wait and see what IDC’s numbers show when they’re released sometime within the next week or so. They were at 4.5% for Q2, if Apple breaks 5% in Q3, then we’ll really have a big story here…
The best news here is the increase in market share to 6.6% because, this means more developers which means more apps.
– Mark
Off topic, but I had to tell someone… I know what the announcement is tomorrow…
At last, a G5 laptop. Its a waterproof floating powerbook you can use in the bath. In fact, to deal with the cooling issues, you can ONLY use it in the bath. The great part is that it keeps the water nice and warm. The red curtains will go back and Steve will be there in a tub, splashing around with the new machine a rubber duck.
“One more thing… can someone scrub my back?”
For the system alert, instead of the bubble sound, it will simply blow a real one, then look embarrassed.
Or… maybe its an apple branded golden staue of SJ that grants all your tech wishes, marketed under the name “iGod” ?
Developers….Developers….Developers….Developers….Developers….
Until we see the raw NPD figures, who knows what this means?
Personally, I’d rather wait until tomorrow and see some authoritative numbers.
When is the conference call going to be broadcast?
< This statistic is of minimal use because it excludes a major, if not the most common, way of buying a computer! >
Perhaps, perhaps not. Note that using the same metric, Apple’s share was 4.3% LAST YEAR. As we all know, Apple didn’t exceed 4% until later.
What this means is that, again using the same metric, Apple share grew substantially. Now anybody that follows Apple’s 10Qs (I do) could have told you the same thing. Its just nice to see someone else, using a different research method, provide confirmation.
All that said, the number that matters, is the one provided by IDC, when they compare manufacturer shipment reports. That one will come out about a week after earnings (hopefully before options expiry).
Sorry, later today – where does the time go?
Yeah, if you extrapolate that figure to Apple’s overall market share (which most recently was 4.5%, wasn’t it?) then it’s encouraging.
I hope they can crack 5% of worldwide sales and keep growing.
While I think we all agree this is not informative for actual marketshare, one thing it is consistent with is the iPod halo effect. That’s not to say that all of the bump is due to that (we know that Apple has opened more stores, so that could be part of it), but I suspect that millions have walked into Apple stores to buy the iPod and got acquainted with the Mac and OSX.
Mac sales plummet.
Hey, a 50% increase in retail market share is still a 50% increase in retail market share. That means that more than 1 in every 15 computers sold in retail stores in the US was a Mac in August, compared to 1 in every 23 for the same period the year before. I’ll be willing to bet that market share increased for online sales as well, given that Apple has the most popular online presence. Online market share may not be up as much as retail, but you can bet it will be up, which means their market share is continuing to grow. That’s a good thing.
Magic word: ‘think’ – Think Different!
invasifspecies: LOL!
Thanks MDN for pointing out the Dell issue in your take. It is important to note that the top PC manufacturer is not being included. I appreciate the fair and balanced reporting here.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> (Honestly, that’s sincere and not sarcastic.)
invasifspecies: Quit it!! I hate when I shoot pop out of my nose from LMAO!
: )
MDN magic word: extent As in I shot pop out of my nose the extent of my arm
My car averages 0mpg when I exclude fuel.
—
clever.. but you can still compare it to the same measure last year.. it’s worth noting.
The point is that the NPD report only tracks retail sales for historical reasons. The NPD report has never tried to track online sales. Thus, while it gives only a partial picture of overall sales, it gives information on a very important piece.
As a couple of other people have noted, the value of the data is that it shows substantial gains for Apple when using the same set of metrics year to year. It’s still instructive.
It’s not “marketshare,” It’s retail sales, meaning 6.6% of all computer retail sales through period, excluding online sales, is from Apple. Marketshare means the % how many people own Apple computers. Apple could capture 30% of retail sales for a quarter but only have a slim 3.5% marketshare overall.
dell is grabbing more of the “retail sales” away from the “retail sales”. Therefore if Apple sold the same amount, their percentage would go up!!
So this stat means nothing since we don’t what dell has taken from “retail sales”.
Actually, after looking at some numbers, Dell’s overall share would have to go up a lot for that to be a reason for Apple’s increase.
so . . . Go Apple!!
“So much for Intel making Mac sales plummet.”
As someone who agreed with those predictions, I’m happy to be wrong. I myself just bought a new iBook, coming to the conclusion that I’d rather go with the ‘proven’ software compatability with PPC, than struggle through whatever issues come up during the initial months of the Macintel transition (which itself is still many months off).
I’ve told others who have inquired that buying an iBook now is ok – prices are lower, it’s not likely to be upgraded again, or to be among the first affected by the CPU changeover. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if iBooks are the units which have mostly driven this recent uptick in sales. The 12″ version in particular seems to be one ofthe best computer deals out there (PC included).
For example, I had an old 600Mhz iBook with Airport back in 2000, and really liked it – the new 1.3Ghz version was about $300 cheaper, has even longer battery life (3-4 hrs), a bigger hard drive, and Bluetooth (me likey). And I just gave up considering PC versions of a 12″ laptop – they’re ridiculously expensive (cheapest I saw was about $1500). Those Centrino chipsets are nice, and I probably would get another 45mins to an hour out of the battery, but I just don’t think the increased cost is worth that (let alone Windows hassles). Intel must be charging an arm and a leg for that technology, since everything else is pretty standard stuff.
Well, I just hope Jobs doesn’t make me a liar, and hits us with an iBook announcement tomorrow anyway. Mine being only a few weeks old and all … well, that would really suck.
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