“Apple last week said it sold a record number of Macs for a September quarter,” Gregg Keizer writes for Computerworld. “‘The Mac…had its best year ever, with the highest annual Mac revenue in Apple’s history,’ said CEO Tim Cook in prepared remarks during a Nov. 2 call with Wall Street analysts. Apple recorded revenue of $25.8 billion from Mac sales in its fiscal 2017, which ended Sept. 30. Mac unit sales of nearly 5.4 million bested both industry and financial analysts’ expectations. Unit sales were up 10.2% over the same quarter in 2016, and the Mac’s ASP, or “average selling price,” jumped to $1,331, a year-over-year rise of $156, for an increase of 13.3%.”
“‘This performance was fueled primarily by great demand for MacBook Pro,’ said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, [last week]. ‘[And] we are also seeing great traction for Mac in the enterprise market, with all-time record customer purchases in fiscal year 2017,'” Keizer writes. “IDC Research Director Linn Huang [said] ‘The biggest grievances were that Apple had allowed their product line to get stale. The notebooks had been refreshed six or seven years earlier, but then just an Intel [processor] refresh every single year.’ Those soft quarters and the lack of a product line reboot led many in the industry to question Apple’s commitment to the Mac, a reasonable inquiry when the iPhone accounted for as much as 68% of the company’s revenues during that time.”
“‘When Apple refreshed their MacBook line-up, it did well, but not alarmingly well,’ Huang said, referring to the October 2016 revamp, which included price increases to account for the new TouchBar,” Keizer writes. “The immediate response to that refresh was subdued, with the following quarter showing just a 1.2% year-over-year increase in unit sales. ‘Now I think what’s happened is that [Apple’s Macs have] been building momentum, and that’s finally started to translate into sales,’ Huang said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Behold, the indomitable Macintosh!
Apple did their best, but then they woke up, because “about the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things.”
SEE ALSO:
General Electric to offer Apple Macs to 330,000 employees as company standardizes on iOS for mobile – October 23, 2017
Enterprise use of Apple Macs primed to expand ‘exponentially’ – September 6, 2017
Microsoft’s Windows is doomed – September 1, 2017
The debate is over: IBM confirms that Apple Macs are $535 less expensive than Windows PCs – October 20, 2016
Steve Jobs’ plan to take back the personal computing business from Microsoft proceeding apace – December 7, 2009
Steve Jobs: ‘Apple’s goal is to stand at the intersection of technology and the humanities’ – October 18, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal: ‘to take back the computer business from Microsoft’ – June 16, 2005
HELLO……. is there Anybody OUT There? World? Hello?
What part of Apple is taking over the enterprise don’t you people understand?
Apple is NOT “taking over the enterprise”. Apple is still in single digit percentages of the installed base in virtually all large enterprises. Apple is having significant sales growth in the enterprise, but that is by no means “taking over the enterprise”. For large businesses a growth from 2% to 4% is 100% growth (more than the Mac actually did), but it’s still a tiny fraction of the installed base.
Optimism about Apples sales growth in the enterprise is warranted. Making statements that “Apple is taking over the enterprise” is not.
Apple did their best by falling asleep and ignoring the pro market for the best part of a decade?
Imagine what sales would be if Tim gave a shit about the Mac and we had up to date hardware. The Mac mini and Mac Pro have been promised updates.
Is Apple taking over the enterprise or is enterprise IT evolving to include freedom of choice? As standards take over computing, and infrastructure shifts to the cloud, Apple benefits and Windows loses. The question then becomes, is the Mac gaining ground on a shrinking hill?
I don’t care if you consider yourself a “pro.” Pick a field, it’s minuscule to the vast majority of people. It is already possible to run a small, medium, or large business entirely on iPads. I don’t care if you don’t like iOS for this reason or that reason, because of no overlapping Windows, etc.
If I had to guess what the future looks like, I’d bet on tablets and phones as primary computing devices, supported by a plugin (cradle) or wireless location-based infrastructures. I.e. walk into the office, drop your iPhone on the pad, or in the cradle, or whatever, and be connected to your large monitor with keyboard and mouse. You are instantly logged into your corporate infrastructure with access to your cloud-based services.
“Is Apple taking over the enterprise or is enterprise IT evolving to include freedom of choice? As standards take over computing, and infrastructure shifts to the cloud, Apple benefits and Windows loses. The question then becomes, is the Mac gaining ground on a shrinking hill?”
The Mac is taking a larger portion of a smaller and smaller total set. This is almost certainly due in a large part to a growing “bring your own device” world. Individuals have always liked Macs more than the IT establishment has liked Macs.
“I don’t care if you consider yourself a “pro.” Pick a field, it’s minuscule to the vast majority of people. It is already possible to run a small, medium, or large business entirely on iPads. I don’t care if you don’t like iOS for this reason or that reason, because of no overlapping Windows, etc.”
Certain businesses, yes, as long as you have a Mac or PC backend. The percentage of businesses outside of the services and sales fields that can be run exclusively on smart phones and tablets is still small today.
“If I had to guess what the future looks like, I’d bet on tablets and phones as primary computing devices, supported by a plugin (cradle) or wireless location-based infrastructures. I.e. walk into the office, drop your iPhone on the pad, or in the cradle, or whatever, and be connected to your large monitor with keyboard and mouse. You are instantly logged into your corporate infrastructure with access to your cloud-based services.’
You don’t have to guess. This is the coming future. People will have a very portable device that they can plug into something larger to do more detailed tasks. This likely won’t be the norm (i.e., more than 75% of the users worldwide) for at least 10 – 20 years and maybe not for 30+ years, but it is definitely coming. Except for cases where very high end personal computing is required, portable devices will rule.
I think they should do a search and rescue for the Mac marketing guys.
rumours had it that a few years ago they ‘went for coffee’ and never came back.
That’s why no Mac ads, not even cheap web ads, no iPhone/Mac tie in promotions, no social media marketing , no Mac Christmas marketing , no ….
(seriously the Mac increase in sales is due to marketing efforts from companies like a Apple partner IBM into enterprise than any determination from Apple leadership… )
Why they would leave billions $ on the floor baffles an aapl investor like me. (Macs made 7 billion last quarter , more than 4.8 billion iPad and twice other products like Watch, AirPods, TV etc put together).
Well, I did my part and bought a new 27″ 5K iMac spec’d out at $2,700. I expect to be using this puppy for many years, just like all of my Apple products.