“As PC sales continue to decline at the hands of tablets like Apple’s iPad, the Mac platform is quietly growing its install base while maintaining an average selling price well above the rest of the market,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“Analyst Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company noted that the average annual price of devices in Apple’s Mac lineup has remained “‘relatively constant at around $1,300,'” Hughes reports. “Even with the average price holding steady, Apple continues to gain PC market share at the cost of Windows devices. In fact, Mac sales have exceeded PC growth and gained overall marketshare in 30 of the last 31 quarters.”
MacDailyNews Note: The lone quarter (Apple fiscal Q113) where Mac failed to outgrow PC market share was due to the great The Great iMac Drought of Christmas 2012. Tim Cook, operations genius.
“But the Mac platform returned to growth in the holiday 2013 quarter, reaching 4.8 million units,” Hughes reports. “That was up from 4.1 million units during the same period in late 2012.”
MacDailyNews Note: The reason why Mac returned to growth in calendar fourth quarter 2013 vs. Q412 was due to the great The Great iMac Drought of Christmas 2012. Tim Cook, operations genius.
“As a result of the Mac’s recent performance, Wolf adjusted his valuation of Apple shares on Monday, giving the company’s traditional computer lineup a greater share of his estimated stock price,” Hughes reports. “Wolf’s latest estimates gave the Mac a 26.9 percent increase to $42.03 worth of a projected $590 share price.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The real story of Macintosh will be told in future quarters, not in comparing an anomalously botched quarter to a quarter in which Apple had ample product to meet demand.
In holiday quarter 2011, Apple sold 5.198 million Macs.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Dominick P.” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
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