“Apple surprised the investor community in October with record breaking sales of the Macintosh computer line,” J. M. Manness writes for Seeking Alpha. “At 5.52 million units, and $6.6 billion in revenue, what had been a declining business, suddenly shot forward.”
“In spite of two years of decline in PC sales, the Mac line has outperformed the PC market in general for more than eight years, slowly picking up market share,” Manness writes. “It now ranks number three in sales in the U.S. and globally is just slightly behind fifth place Asus (5.8 million), according to Gartner.”
“The [all-time record] 5.52 million Macs sold last quarter was a 21% increase in the number of units (18% revenue growth) compared to the same quarter a year ago. I see no reason why this should not continue. It is in line with growth the previous year (19%),” Manness writes. “So, in the year ago FQ1 Apple sold 4.837 million Macs (revenue $6.395 billion). If we add 21% growth in units then we have 5.85 million units… I forecast about 5.9 million Macs will be sold this quarter (FQ1-2015) earning revenue of $7.6 billion. I believe this is a slightly conservative estimate.”
“With Microsoft dropping support for Windows XP, many businesses will need to buy replacement hardware. Inevitably, some will take the opportunity to switch to Macs,” Manness writes. “Looking forward, there is also the partnership with IBM. While focused on mobile apps and support, this will undoubtedly also be a huge boon for the Mac… The value of this should not be underestimated.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: 5.52 million Macs sold in 91 days. Manness predicts 5.9 million Macs this Christmas quarter (we’re expecting 6 Plus million).
As we wrote on January 10, 2005, after Apple had just reported 836,000 Macs sold in Q405:
As we have always said, even as many short-sightedly waved (and continue to wave) the white flag, the war is not over. And, yes, we shall prevail…
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “OldFatGuy” for the heads up.]
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