Forbes: Apple wows investors, but ‘came up empty’ regarding new iPods, home entertainment PC

21 years ago

“Apple Computer wowed investors by detailing its stunning holiday sales, but tech enthusiasts didn’t find much of a bite after the company came up empty by not offering any new iPods or a home entertainment PC,” Chris Kraeuter and Rachel Rosmarin report for Forbes. “Still, Apple shares surged above $80 to another all-time high, as a much-anticipated keynote address about new products by Chief Executive Steve Jobs was bolstered by unexpected revelations that Apple booked sales of $5.7 billion for the last quarter, selling 14 million iPods.”

“Analysts had expected sales of $5 billion and music player sales of around 11 million units at the high end. The company’s 135 retail stores also did big business, raking in $1 billion. And its iTunes online music store was facilitating 3 million downloads per day,” Kraeuter and Rachel Rosmarin report. These are all blowout numbers, but they are also backward-looking. The forward-looking numbers for Apple will revolve around its partnership with Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker. Apple engineers and programmers will have two new Intel-based computers for sale by February, four months ahead of Jobs’ original estimate.”

MacDailyNews Note: Sigh. Apple’s iMac 17-inch 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo and iMac 20-inch 2GHz Intel Core Duo are both available now and started shipping yesterday. It’s clearly stated on Apple’s online store and in the press release. It’s not hard to report that information correctly.

Kraeuter and Rachel Rosmarin continue, “The computers are fast–estimated at two to five times as fast as their Mac predecessors–and will be backed up by a stark ad campaign that pokes fun at how Intel chips have been limited up until now to ‘dull little boxes doing dull little tasks.’ …It didn’t help Intel’s stock price on Tuesday. But once the magnitude of this partnership becomes clearer, investors will wake up to the fact that Apple has the potential to carve out a large chunk of share with the manufacturing scale and performance boost that Intel’s chips can provide its boxes. Apple’s laptops have been going stale, but that situation should reverse itself once the company gets its MacBook Pro’s out there. The company has done well with its iMac line of desktops, but by appealing to a wider audience that is comfortable with Intel, Apple finally has the market muscle to move beyond the technocrats and digital media aficionados that have thus far provided only a 10% market share.”

Kraeuter and Rachel Rosmarin report, “But Apple was asleep at the wheel when it came to responding to pleas from consumers for new home theater hardware and new music players. An oft-rumored Mac Mini with digital video recording capabilities and software was nowhere to be seen during Jobs’ presentation… As for what else is ahead, it’s back to the rumor mill for all of Apple’s rabid watchers. One date to watch: April 1, the 30th anniversary of Apple’s founding.”

Full article here.

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