Apple Stores expected to return to growth in Dec. quarter
updated 11:50 am EDT, Tue October 27, 2009
Recession continues to hamper traffic
Apple Stores should return to some measure of growth in the December quarter, argues Needham analyst Charlie Wolf. While worldwide retail revenues were up 9 percent overall in the September quarter, Wolf notes that same-store revenues dipped down 6.3 percent. Outlets also saw Mac sales fall 3 percent, and non-Mac sales slip by 0.6 percent. The latter figure is actually thought to have been alleviated by a doubling of year-over-year iPod touch sales, while the former is described as less severe as a result of updated MacBook Pros.
Trends are nevertheless swinging in the right direction, Wolf suggests, as the June quarter saw worse in the form of a 14.1 drop in Macs, paired with a 1.9 decline in non-Mac products. Similarly, same-store revenues are said to have plummeted 14 percent as a whole in June, and 17.2 percent in March. Year-over-year growth in December is a "virtual certainty," Wolf proposes, if at least because December 2008 was the first quarter to feel the impact of the global recession.
