Tuesday, January 22,2008 @ 7:00pm
Leopard launch dwarfs Tiger by $70 million
Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system, which launched on October 26th of last year, earned the company $170 million during its first quarter of availability. Those earnings compare to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger's launch in late April of 2005, which earned the company roughly $100 million during its first quarter on the market. "We're extremely pleased with the very successful launch of Leopard on October 26th, and the response from both customers and reviewers have been terrific," said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer.
Apple is expecting much lower earnings during its next quarter as a result of an expected decline in Leopard sales. Historically many computer owners upgrade to a newly released operating system shortly after launch, after which sales tend to drop sharply.
Several factors contribute to operating system sales, however, such as late adopters who do not entirely trust the initial release of a new operating system. Those users tend to hold out until a more battle-hardened version of the OS is available, making their purchases much later than the early adopters who make up the initial wave of sales.
"We believe that 19 percent of the Mac OS X installed base is already using Leopard," Oppenheimer said.