Mac decline to continue

Apple may be facing a second consecutive quarter of decline in Mac sales as gauged year-over-year, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster suggests. The analyst cites new statistics from NPD Group, which show that April shipments fell 1.8 percent versus the same period in 2008. Although not as harsh as the 5 to 10 percent initially called for by Piper, the drop could foretell substantial problems with the rest of Q3, using assumptions about sales behavior in May and June.

Quarterly shipments could slide by as much as 8 to 16 percent, a factor worse than Street estimates of 7 to 10 percent. Either figure would be worse than the results of Apple's second financial quarter, which saw Mac sales dip by only 3 percent. Poor performance is being blamed on the global recession, which has until recently done little to affect Apple's profits.

Compounding problems are new NPD figures on iPods, which show that player sales plummeted 9 percent in April. Similarly, while average selling prices remained consistent for Macs, the same value for iPods dropped 11 percent. Apple will likely ship 9.5 to 10.5 million iPods during Q309, according to Munster, as compared to the 11 million reached in Q308. Apple has not seen a slump in year-over-year iPod figures since the product's 2001 introduction.

by MacNN Staff