Monday, October 8,2007 @ 4:55pm
Analyst: Leopard to generate $240M in Q4
The impending release of Mac OS X Leopard could prove to be financially lucrative, says an analyst with the market research firm Piper Jaffray. Gene Munster notes that Leopard is being released at the end of the first month of a financial quarter, like the previous version of Mac OS X, Tiger; Leopard however will benefit from a much greater Mac OS X installed base, consisting of 23 million users versus 12 million. Since Tiger accrued $125 million in its launch quarter, with a 15 percent uptake in the space of just six weeks, Munster estimates that Leopard will add $240 million to Apple's Q4 2007. Looking forward to January's Macworld expo, Munster also predicts that Apple will release one of two products: a rumored touchscreen PDA somewhat larger than an iPhone, or a possible subnotebook.