“There can be little doubting that the iPod ‘halo effect’ now shines a positive light on Apple’s Mac sales. Strong US educational sales, particularly into Higher Education, also helped the company shrug off fears of an ‘Osborne Effect’ prior to next year’s move to Intel processors. In fact, Mac sales were up 48 per cent year-on-year. However fears about soft iPod sales caused Apple stock to drop 10 per cent in after hours trading,” Andrew Orlowski reports for Channel Register. “Surprisingly, and despite ten consecutive quarters of growth for the iPod, Apple found itself fending off criticism of ‘weak’ iPod numbers. Apple sold 6.45m iPods in the quarter, only 5 per cent up from the previous quarter, but 1m of these were iPod Nanos shipped in the last 17 days of the period. One analyst described the 5.4m non-Nano iPods sold as ‘pretty light demand.’ Apple responded that Mini shipments were wound down prior to the Nano launch, that overall iPod sales came in as expected, that it couldn’t meet Nano demand, and that the company would be launching new products in the music segment in time for the holiday season.”
“In terms of Mac sales, Apple set a record of 634,000 iBook and PowerBook shipments for the quarter, 139,000 more than last year, but the strongest growth year-on-year came from desktop and server sales. Mac Mini, iMac, eMac, PowerMac and Xserve were up 56 per cent in terms of units and 42 per cent higher measuring revenue. Portable revenue was up 22 per cent on 41 per cent more units shipped,” Orlowski reports.
Full article (where Orlowski also includes a link that explains that the Osborne Effect is a myth) here.
Related articles:
Apple Q4 05 earnings report: best quarter & best year in company history – October 11, 2005