Although Apple recently launched several updated computer systems, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster expects February Mac sales to show a decline of up to 12 percent year-over-year. If true, sales have continued to slide from the observation of a 6 percent drop for January. In contrast, the company saw a 60 percent year-over-year gain last February following the MacBook Air launch.

Munster believes, however, that the new iMac and Mac mini models will help level sales for March, possibly achieving numbers just one percent below the same month last year. While any drop certainly is not great news, it could still show strength amid a shrinking market.

Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu recently suggested that Apple should prove mostly immune to the negative effects of the recession, with shipment fluctuations that appear to follow product cycles closer than economic swings.

Apple also has established itself as one of the few companies that remains unaffected by the PC price collapse, holding average selling prices fairly level across a decade. TBR analyst Ezra Gottheil pointed out that the ASPs for the larger manufacturers fell by 13 percent in the fourth quarter and pulled the revenue down 18 percent.

The Mac-maker managed to establish an ASP above $1400, significantly higher than many of its competitors. Prices for Dell computers averaged slightly above $800 in the fourth quarter, while HP and Lenovo prices dropped down to around $600. [via Silicon Alley Insider]