“Apple is beginning to look like it is going to fulfil its commercial potential. All the signs are there. The Apple stock price rose by over 200 percent in 2004 and, in its final quarter, its revenues rose to $3.5 billion giving it a run rate of $14 billion. The run rate may be a little misleading because the final quarter revenues were boosted by sales of 4.6 million iPods, which is a Christmas peak. Nevertheless, Apple is clearly outperforming all consumer electronics stocks by a dramatic margin – and Apple isn’t just a consumer electronics company, although its financial vitality comes primarily from that market,” Robin Bloor writes for Bloor Research.
“The iPod is a phenomenon that no-one saw coming. Apple hasn’t just done a great piece of marketing and design work, it has established a very powerful brand; one that must be the envy of many. It is also generating significant revenues, and one analyst organization, Generator Solutions Ltd, is predicting that Apple’s music revenues will reach US$6 billion by 2007,” Bloor writes. “However, Apple isn’t just doing well in this fashion driven market. IDC reported 25 percent growth in its worldwide shipments of PCs (compared to 13.7 percent for the market as a whole) and the success of the iPod looks to be stimulating sales. The iPod is an invitation to use the Apple PC [Mac] as a media center.”
“If the MiniMac [Mac mini] proves to be a success, and it’ll be a while before we know, then Apple will have finally gained entry to the mass PC market – a market it had previously chosen to price itself out of,” Bloor writes. The point is that Apple clearly intends to play in the mass PC market and it now has the foundation and a product with which to do that.”
The differentiating features of the Mac, in case you’ve never used one, are:
• It doesn’t crash; it’s highly secure and fairly bullet-proof against PC pests (viruses, spam, hacking etc.). This all adds up to “trouble free”
• It’s the definitive digital juke box
• It’s the premier digital photography platform
• It’s likely to become the definitive digital platform (it is a little early to pronounce this)
• Good lap-top PCs
• Ease-of-use (in many ways superior to the competition)
• Microsoft compatibility is good (for years, this had been a problem)
• Good networking (it happily networks with Windows PCs)
Full article, with much more, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ahhh, it feels to good to start off the week with a piece by an analyst who’s actually done some homework and understands what’s happening with Apple Computer. According to a recent reports from Banc of America, Mac mini product scarcity this quarter will result in less than 250,000 units being sold this quarter. So, Bloor is correct that “it’ll be a while before we know” how the true measure of Mac mini’s success. The really important Mac mini numbers will come in the 3rd and, of course, 4th (Christmas) quarters of 2005, not this one.
[UPDATE, 10:50am ET: MDN Note: We refer to 2005 calendar quarters above as using Apple’s fiscal quarters generally results in confusion for more readers than not. Calendar year quarters are defined: Jan 1 – Mar 31 = 1st quarter, Apr 1 – Jun 30 = 2nd quarter, Jul 1 – Sep 30 = 3rd quarter, Oct 1 – Dec 31 – 4th quarter. Apple’s fiscal year 2005 runs from September 26, 2004 to September 24, 2005. Accordingly, Apple’s fiscal 2005 first quarter ended December 25, 2004.]
Check out Bloor’s other articles and note their publication dates; Bloor seems to have had his finger on the pulse of what’s going on with Apple for some time:
Bloor Research on Microsoft: ‘There are definitely some dents in the Death Star’ – October 20, 2004
Bloor Research: ‘Apple is out-innovating the competition in a remorseless way’ – September 10, 2004
Bloor Research: A nascent trend from Windows to Mac underway? – September 23, 2003
Banc of America: Apple will sell ‘below 250,000’ Mac mini units this quarter – February 25, 2005
Banc of America analyst estimates 900,000 Apple Mac mini units to be sold in 2005 – February 25, 2005
Apple Computer could sell 21 million iPod shuffle units in 2005 – January 19, 2005
Apple says up to 4-week wait for iPod Shuffle; initial stockpile rumored at 2 million units – January 18, 2005
MDN I agree with you on how you see this article but please get it right about Apples fiscal year. Christmas 2005 is in the 2006 first quarter for Apple not 2005 fourth quarter. Fiscal years do not necessarily follow the calendar year and for Apple they most certainly do not.
dab2,
Please point to where MDN didn’t “get it right” about Apple’s fiscal year? You sound like an insufferable dweeb. I have to believe that MDN understands the difference between the quarters of the calendar year versus Apple’s fiscal year. In fact, a quick check shows that they do understand, unerringly: “Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2005 first quarter ended December 25, 2004.” – MacDailyNews, Wednesday, January 12, 2005.
You need to relax or something, dab2.
Yes, Doctor, MDN has gotten it right before, but this time they got it wrong. There’s nothing wrong with politely correcting an error when it occurs. Looks like you’re the one who needs to relax.
Doctor Ruth,
Sometimes MDN gets it right but sometimes they don’t. The trick is that they call themselves MacDailyNews which implys that they are a news site. They constantly take others to task for small errors and can be quite smug about it.
I am an avid Mac user and a regular MDN reader for years. (My first Mac was an SE-30 my twenty-first Mac is an iBook. The first Mac I programmed on was the original 128k back in the Pascal days.) I have noticed this error in the past but have not commented on it because I didn’t want to make waves. Today I decided to say something because it bothers me when a news source can’t get its facts straight; it makes me question the rest of their work.
I like MDN and usually agree with their take on a story. Today I even said that I liked what they said about this article. I’m not the enemy, just somebody who wants good information.
PS – Thanks iBrowse
“The really important Mac mini numbers will come in the 3rd and, of course, 4th (Christmas) quarters of 2005, not this one,” MDN wrote.
There is absolutely, positively, unequivocally nothing at all wrong with this sentence. MDN are clearly referring the the calendar year “2005,” not Apple’s particular fiscal quarter numbering.
MDN is simply not in error here.
As for Bloor, he is a very good analyst.
Bloor does a nice job on the article, but what floors me is that the features of the Mac are newsworthy. One wonders why these facts aren’t common knowledge and why people still stream to Wintel in droves.
All it takes is Apple iPod and iTunes sales to slow in sales growth and watch these same people come out and say “Is it over for Apple?”, “A Fluke?”…
Or mini mac sales to:
a) not be bought in large numbers by PC owners;
and/or
b) mini mac is taking away from other Apple computer sales
and the press will be calling the minimac a “maximistake?”.
And that with the change in CEO at Sony any “secret deals” Apple and Sony are working on are out the window.
And the fact that the top speed of a Mac has not increased in nearly 2 years…the press will start wondering is Apple getting out of the professional computer market?
I congratulate Bloor on his research of the facts. Finally someone actually knows what he’s talking about and writes a story about it.
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I have seen minis in stock at some third party resellers in Akihabara. Traditionally Japan follows the US to some extent so as Apple takes off more in the US that should translate to more market share in Japan as well.
Done some homework? Not enough, if they truly believe “it doesn’t crash.”
And what the hell does “definitive digital platform” even mean?
who let the peecee apologist (“dennis”) in here?
Try “crashes less.”
“Fairly” bullet-proof against viruses?
Try 100%. For now…