UBS on Apple inventory

Apple is doing extremely well in terms of inventory turnover, writes UBS. Reporting on comparative figures for the December quarter, the investment bank notes that Apple tended to keep inventory in stock for an average of only five days, one of the lowest figures in the industry. While a sizable inventory can be important to coping with sudden surges in demand, excessive inventory is wasteful and can exacerbate financial problems if a new product is introduced before old inventory is cleared.

Apple's December numbers are a significant improvement over June of this year, when inventory was held for an average of 10 days; this may have been attributable to the ramp-up for the iPhone 3G, however.

Within the tech industry, Apple's closest inventory competitor during the December quarter may have been Dell, which kept stock at hand for a week. Lenovo and HP held onto inventory for 15 and 32 days, respectively. Nokia, Cisco, Motorola, Qualcomm and AMD managed turnovers of 27, 31, 48, 56 and 67 days; more substantially burdened companies included Intel at 89 days, Texas Instruments at 90, and Netgear at 91. One of the worst performers is said to have been D-Link, which displayed a staggering 131-day turnover.

by MacNN Staff