“Following a series of checks with sources in the Far East, researchers for Banc of America have put out a call indicating that Apple has commissioned a significant increase in production of Macs for the current quarter while simultaneously reducing iPod production,” Katie Marsal reports for AppleInsider.
“‘We continue to believe that desktops and notebooks are the key driver of the Apple story,’ analyst Scott Craig wrote in a report to clients Friday. ‘Both desktop and notebook production numbers have moved up by 20%+ from expectations in early January, indicating potentially solid demand thus far in the March quarter, as well as some inventory replenishment,'” Marsal reports. “He added that his checks suggest Mac production numbers will continue to rise throughout the quarter, and that MacBook Air production has also increased slightly since mid-January.”
Marsal reports, “At the same time, however, the analyst noted that iPod production numbers for the March quarter ‘appear to have been significantly reduced, down 10–20% from early January and down 30%+ from early December.'”
Full article here.
If this report is accurate, expect Apple to make moves to stimulate iPod demand sooner than later via aggressive pricing and/or increased features (greater storage on flash-based models).
Can they tell us how that compares to the seasonality of last year?
http://www.macworld.com/article/131874/2008/01/ipodsales.html
Maybe last quarter was made up of a lot of holiday sales – like it is every year. And, like every year, sales the quarter after the holidays go back down to normal.
It looks like a sign that the stellar growth of iPod sales is slowing down some. Kudos on the Mac sales growth though.
What I know for sure is that my iPods all work. My Macs all work. MacOS 10.5.x works fine and there is more in the pipeline.
What i also know for sure is that S. Jobs and Co are not including Banc of America in any of their manufacturing decisions.
So as far as I am concerned, I will get better information from Zune Tang than these duffusheads!
Speculation by investment house has one single purpose – to drive their buy or sell agenda – not your stock purchase – their commissions. PERIOD.
As soon as you get that you will understand the hype.
How do I know? You may ask. I ran a brokerage firm in Zürich for ten years. I know.
@AI
Makes sense that Apple will order less iPods for the next few months because they usually sell 1/3 less in these quarters compared to Xmas. So a 30 % reduction is not surprising.
What is good news is that Apple is increasing Mac orders.
One thing I am thinking about is whether the price of flash memory will restrict Apple’s ability to sell higher capacity iPod Touches and iPhones. Given that a solid state drive with 64 gigs in it costs $900, how much would a 32 gig touch be?
What is the panic, lets see a Mac sells for about 10 times that of an iPod, so if Mac is increasing and iPod is decreasing (or not increasing as fast) I think they will probably be making MORE money unless iPod sales drops drastically, which is not going to happen. Enough with all the G–D— bad press, some anal-ists will seem to go out of their way to make Apple look bad!!!
Why you chowderheads! I oughta moida yoo! It’s simple: Apple is dialing back iPod orders because sales are – get ready – SEASONAL.
I wouldn’t get your shorts all in a knot. You knuckleheads are acting like the world is ending. It’s just that this time of year has slower sales than the Winter Solstace Period of Pleasantness (AKA, Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanzaa, etc.)
Why is it that the frigtards in the media can’t get this? Here, pick two…
Hard Drive based touch. Come on Apple!
No mystery here.
(a) iPods lowest quarter is the one after Xmas. (duh)
iPod sold 22 million, and are now fairly steady at 50 million per year and growing at 5-10%. Thats not a bad thing.(with iPhone/Touch included – they ARE ipods – the growth is 17%)
(b) iPhone/Touch disturbs the market – both are now proven, so we can expect some version 2 models out in the next 6 months.(we already know that 3G iPhone will be out this summer.)
(c) iPod’s sold approx 90% in cash of the entire MP3 market last quarter, and about 75% in numbers.
iPod OWNS the market, so why worry? If you think the zzzzzune is any kind of challenger, you need a psychiatrist.
(d) iPhone is very popular, but still a little rich in price for true mass-market – BUT, mass-market in cell phones is a low profit market – so Apple will NOT play the disposable cell-phone game, ever. iPhone will always be a mini-computer etc.etc., will always be a ‘smart phone’, will always be around the $300-$400 price zone. It will simply get more capacity and more power, but stay at the same price point.
Its a mini-mini Mac, after all.
(e) New products – bigger capacity in iPhone/Touch – thats a no brainer.
Possible wifi in ALL iPods (another no brainer?).
More convergence to allow web purchases of ALL kinds with the iPhone/Touch. Not just coffee and music.
Chance of a throw away nano iPhone? ZERO.
If you only have $200 to spend, Apple want you to buy a Shuffle or a Nano and get a cheap cell phone from someone else.
Eventually, you will buy an iPhone, when you have the $400.
The iPod range LEADS customers to the iPhone when they are ready to spend the extra moolah. This is a great marketing strategy.
Chance of a tablet device? NONE.
Ask yourself WHY would they make one? Only 0.1% of the market desire one, if that.
Apple is in the development business and they build slowly but beautifully until they are ready to execute.
The recent stock bullshit has sapped the confidence of some Apple fans, but it shouldnt.
Apple is on track to reach 20% of the market, which will give them dominance in the consumer space.
At that point, they have to make some big decisions about how far they want to go.
Remember folks, NO-ONE is building an OS like OSX. Windows is far behind. Windows needs a COMPLETE re-write, and the only place to go is a Unix-base and M$ wont do that.
M$ want to keep their OS working for old programs and peripherals, but the peripherals and software is becoming so CHEAP, that its a mistake.
However as long as they keep making mistakes, Apple will stay way out in front.
Change – the one constant in our world…
Apple has ZERO competition, which is why all the FUD lately.
Buy Apple shares, be happy, watch them continue to go.
NOTHING has changed – Apple is the one to follow.
I had expected Penryn chips in all MacBooks and the iMac, multi-touch trackpads on all MacBooks, and 10.5.2 for release in January 2008. MBA is nothing more than Apple’s distraction while Intel struggles to get Penryn production up to speed.
Increase in orders for Macs is great news. I’ll always want Apple to be a company that makes computing devices. iPods are transitioning to becoming computing devices too, so it would not be surprising if Apple started reducing inventory on the current generation of “dumb” iPods. It’s also possible that this report is completely false and part of the campaign to bring down Apple’s stock price (which a some point will revert to taking the price back up).
sffshz,
Yeah, too bad Apple didn’t go with AMD instead of incompetent Intel, eh?
“The iPod market isn’t declining at all if you include the iPhone as an iPod.”
Or if you include all the other MP3 players and music phones out there now taking share from the iPod, the market isn’t declining but Apple’s share is..
“Why you chowderheads! I oughta moida yoo! It’s simple: Apple is dialing back iPod orders because sales are – get ready – SEASONAL.”
You’re right. Removing Seasonality thye’re 5-10% lower than the same quarter last year according to the article. Chowderhead.
“Still, another explanation is that entirely new line might be introduced that would supplant an existing line,”
Sure and if that was coming any time in the next 3 months, the orders would be in now.
” I hope Apple doesn’t try to Motorolla-ise them in terms of adding unneccessary features just to sell a few more.”
I wouldn’t worry. Apple knows better than that.
-jcr
$ is getting cheaper… so losts are smaller too…
This is awesome newz!! Compared to the Christmas quarter, any iPod orders would certainly be less the following slow spring quarter, but Mac orders are actually INCREASED after the Christmas quarter…that is great news. Now the market will see that differently, because they don’t ever do their homework. The swings in the market are due to professional idiots.
expect Apple to make moves to stimulate iPod demand sooner than later via aggressive pricing and/or increased features
If this is to happen, we’d better hope it’s in the form of regular product cycles.
Apple, don’t think you can simply cut-price your way to success. Look at what it’s done for Dell and certain auto-industry players.
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The market sets itself, no matter what one wants demand to be. Propping sales through pricing alone is suicidal.
The beauty of diversification.
“The beauty of diversification.”
Not much diversification at Apple. They ownd the world’s most successful MP3 player and an also-ran computing platform.