Analyst: Apple selling more notebooks than Wall Street realizes

“Apple is selling more notebooks than Wall Street realizes and should beat earnings estimates next year, Bank of America said in upgrading the stock to buy Monday,” TheStreet.com reports.

“Bank of America raised its estimate of Apple’s earnings in the year ending September 2007 to $2.66 a share from $2.44 a share. It raised its price target on the stock to $79 from $68, which reflects a multiple of roughly 26 over the new profit estimate, adjusted for cash and interest… The current Thomson First Call consensus for the year ending September 2007 is $2.59 a share,” TheStreet.com reports.

TheStreet.com reports, “‘The drivers of our estimates and rating change is higher unit estimates for systems and iPods,’ the brokerage says. ‘In particular, our channel checks show higher end demand for MacBooks than our previous checks — we are raising our forecast by 300,000 units for the combined September and December quarters and a like amount for FY07.'”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back on April 13th: While we’re not a research firm by any stretch, we do have our own checks and are able to take some measure of the pulse of what’s going on in the Mac world. Our checks indicate that Mac sales have picked up significantly since the Boot Camp debut and corresponding press coverage. The information we are seeing allows us to confidently state that… the ability to run their Windows “insecurty blanket” on Macs is causing people to buy Macs. The idea of buying one machine and getting both OS worlds is very appealing, it seems. Once they try Mac OS X, what usually happens will happen with them, too. More and more Mac OS X use with less and less Windows use.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple gaining traction as Mac market share increases – July 31, 2006
Survey shows big jump in consumer interest in buying Apple Mac; Dell takes steep slide – July 06, 2006
BusinessWeek: big market-share gains coming for Apple’s Macintosh – June 15, 2006
Pre-Boot Camp report: Apple could double market share on Microsoft defections – April 13, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
Analyst: Apple Mac market share primed to explode; iPod Halo Effect to become increasingly important – June 13, 2006
Analysts: Apple Mac market share to surge by end of 2006 – June 07, 2006
Analysts expect Apple’s new MacBook to drive market share gains in near future – May 17, 2006
Many believe Mac market share increases coming now that Apple Macs can run Windows applications – April 25, 2006
Apple ready to take back market share; may debut Windows virtualization in Mac OS X Leopard – April 21, 2006
Pre-Boot Camp report: Apple could double market share on Microsoft defections – April 13, 2006
Apple Mac primed for market share gains as consumer portable market grows – April 12, 2006
Analyst: Apple Boot Camp could be an opportunity for Mac market share gains – April 06, 2006
Apple’s ‘Boot Camp’ a watershed, could dramatically expand Mac market share – April 05, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
Why buy a Dell when Apple’s Intel-based computers will run both Mac OS X and Windows? – June 08, 2005

22 Comments

  1. I’ve been posting on MDN that I believe Apple is sandbagging Wall Street and the tech media on its sales projections. This article gets it right. Apple, by its own words, sold 800,000 notebooks during the last quarter. And there was only a half a quarters worth of time for MacBook availability. Anyway I try to work the numbers, this quarters sales — and it is the hot back to school quarter — has to be closer to two million units than one million units. You had better get your AAPL before the price challenges triple digits.

  2. Imagine if Intel has some “special processor” or chipset that boost performance ONLY IN MAC. If this happends, Mac will benefit because every body will look at apple as the only source of computers and will became the new monopoly of OS and computers, but also, intel will be the only processor on the market since apple wont use AMD processors.. but it is just a dream.

  3. As others have stated, I’ve been waiting for the Merom chips to appear before I jump to this new generation of machines. I’m uusuallly an early adopter, but decided to wait until the kinks were worked out of the new Intel laptops. It was REALLY hard to wait when the MacBooks were introduced, but thanks to the not-so-secretive Intel roadmap of production, I knew I should wait.

    That being said, I’m going to be one of the first to purchase a shiny new MBP when they are “outed” in the next few weeks. Of course, if Apple introduced an iPad or an ultraprotable version, I’d have to buy one of each.

  4. iBuyer:

    “I’m waiting for ANY kind of performance/capacity bump in the MacBrook Pro line to appear at WWDC next week. If’n that happens, I’m buying two right away.”

    One for each hand? 😀

  5. I spoke with my buddy at my local Apple store yesterday and mentioned that I’d noticed that every time I come in the store lately, there is a line of people buying computers at the cash register. He agreed and added that not only are they selling more but they are an easier sell. When the store first opened, most sales were an uphill battle overcoming objections. Now people walk in and point to what they want and the sales people are selling accessories and answering software questions instead of convincing people that switching to Mac is a good idea.

  6. …the ability to run their Windows “insecurity blanket” on Macs is causing people to buy Macs. The idea of buying one machine and getting both OS worlds is very appealing, it seems. Once they try Mac OS X, what usually happens will happen with them, too. More and more Mac OS X use with less and less Windows use.

    Actually this is the true reasons for the increase of Mac sales.

    1: There is hardly any retail “brick and mortar store” computer presence since Gateway stores passed away.

    2: Apple is grabbing retail locations in high traffic, higher than average income locations.

    3: Apple’s salespeople are selling Intel-Mac’s to PC users with the intention they install their present copy of Windows on it when they get home.

    4: Apple is now using the plentiful Intel processors, isn’t hampered by a supply restriction.

    5: The people who make Apple’s laptops are the same company who makes many other computer makers laptops. So there really isn’t change as far this company is concerned, they still produce the same amount of laptops. Apple is less vulnerable.

    What will be the deciding factor in the coming years with more Apple hardware sales, is IF Mac OS X market share increases at the same rate.

    This means more people are actually switching, which will drive developers to make more software available for our platform. Which will in turn draw more people into Mac OS X.

    This is a delicate gamble on the part of Apple, a lot depends if Microsoft can cure it’s problems in the next version of the OS.

    I don’t think people are going to accept dual booting for very long.

  7. Sandbagging:

    Financially, if a company over-estimates their quarterly earnings, they are open for liability, and law-suits from their shareholders. It happens, especially in the tech world.

    If Apple “shoots the moon” with their estimates, and misses, and even one board of director or VP happens to sell any stock during that quarter of stock run-up – lawsuit city.

    If a company shoots low, legal action can be taken as well, but it happens less frequently (for shorting the stock).

    Apple’s financial numbers are probably slighly conservative, but so are most tech companies numbers, and thus, in-line with reality.

    Sandbagging? No, that rarely happens.

  8. While we’re not a research firm by any stretch, we do have our own checks and are able to take some measure of the pulse of what’s going on in the Mac world.

    B.S.,If you had any verifiable “checks” or statistics that were documented, you’d be stating the source. Your so-called “checks” are nothing more than specualtion. “Oh the Apple store looks busy, they are selling a lot of computers.” Duh…

  9. MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back on April 13th: While we’re not a research firm by any stretch, we do have our own checks and are able to take some measure of the pulse of what’s going on in the Mac world. Our checks indicate that Mac sales have picked up significantly since the Boot Camp debut and corresponding press coverage. The information we are seeing allows us to confidently state that… the ability to run their Windows “insecurty blanket” on Macs is causing people to buy Macs. The idea of buying one machine and getting both OS worlds is very appealing, it seems. Once they try Mac OS X, what usually happens will happen with them, too. More and more Mac OS X use with less and less Windows use.

    ————

    OMG! Nostradamus has been re-incarnated as Steve Jack!

  10. “B.S.,If you had any verifiable “checks” or statistics that were documented, you’d be stating the source. Your so-called “checks” are nothing more than specualtion. “Oh the Apple store looks busy, they are selling a lot of computers.” Duh…”

    Yes, clearly, sales from Apple stores are in the toilet and going lower…

    Apple is doing what it takes to regain the consumer market–end to end solutions and face to face support. It will be obvious in a few years…

    Dell is not really the enemy, as they only get about 15% from consumer market, fwiw.

  11. So you’re saying that if you have a source, you always identify it? Hmm. Could there be reasons other than your shrill pronouncements that he’s not identifying the source by name? Think outside the box, mmkay? I don’t know if he does or doesn’t, but I do know that jumping to conclusions is dumb. Grow up, already.

  12. There going to need the new processors from intel for the macbook pros. Otherwise, who would buy a pro since the specs are so similar? Hardcore gamers? Nah, they’re still buying Windows boxes. Graphics/Video professionals? Video, maybe; but not graphics. They’re waiting for CS3 to come out as dual binary. Otherwise, it would be foolish to spend the extra money on an aluminum case, slightly bigger hard drive, and so-so graphics card.

    With the intel roadmap, estimating apple revisions becomes a bit more straightforward; it’s more like quasi science instead of outright tea leaf reading.

    With the new processors in the pros, sales of laptops overall will probably grow more. Ordinary consumers will still buy macbooks and get a hell of a functional, speedy machine for the money. The geekier than thou crowd and professionals will have an incentive to buy the faster, cooler, newly improved pros. There will be nowhere for sales to go but up.

  13. Clyde,

    You are very articulate, but you spoiled it with your mis-use of ‘there’ instead of the more appropriate ‘their’.

    It matters. I had to re-read your starting sentence a couple times before I made the mental correction and then was able to understand you.

  14. A battery recall which appears to be for a unit that merely underperforms, as opposed to a say a Dell which can double as a barbecue.

    I love it when Windows fanboys come on here and try and cause a ruckus. You’d think they’d have work to do preparing for a Vista upgrade, but maybe not.

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.