Mac sales numbers aren’t that shocking…
I’m surprised that people think Apple’s quarterly Mac sales missed the mark. You could have certainly expected them to be higher on the back of the Mac product release for the quarter, the retina MacBook Pro - 30 seconds of Google-fu:
- Retina MacBook Pro released June 11th at WWDC
- Morning of June 12th, Shipping times were already at 2-3 weeks. By the end of the day, 3-4 weeks.
- Early shipment notifications started going out on June 14th
- July 13th, shipping times back to 2-3 weeks - which is 13 days after the end of the just reported quarter.
As of today, they are running a 1-2 week shipping lead time.
Seems like they are (still) having trouble keeping up, what would have unconstrained retina MacBook Pro supply have done for the Mac sales numbers? I guess we’ll find out next quarter.
2012 Apple Prognostication Statement
If you follow me on any of the various social spamworks I’m sure you too were inundated in the last couple of weeks with the news that Apple announced the next version of OS X Mountain Lion, amongst other things. I’m not going to summarise the news, you know the Googles.
There’s enough info floating around now to make some stab in the dark guesses about what I expect to come out of Apple this year…
- iPad: Widely rumoured, March 6th. You’ll just have to believe that this has been sitting in my drafts for a few weeks - When the first leaked images of the iPad case surfaced I picked the day that was exactly 4 weeks from then. Allowing for the Apple ‘4-week-pre-event-hype cycle’. Turns out I got pretty close, I picked Tuesday because it’s a traditional release day for Apple…That’ll teach me.
It’s quite early days in the life of the iPad, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see it follow a similar 2-year cycle as the iPhone. That means this is a ‘minor’ year - improvements on the current generation without major redesign, almost indistinguishable: think 3G->3GS, 4->4S.
- WWDC: June 11-15. Apple set the stage last year for what people should expect from WWDC: lots of software announcments. Mountain Lion, iOS 6 preview, more on iCloud.
Edit 13/06/12 - Got the dates right and most of the content. I had no idea about MacBooks, very happy to see the retina display has arrived for the Mac.
- iPod’s of most persuasions: September-ish. I feel like we’ve seen the last of big iPod events and I’m betting there is no event this year. Expect a catchy tune coupled with an advertising blitz. New colours for nano and shuffle. I don’t see how they could make the touch any thinner, but anything’s possible in the land of Oz…err…Cupertino. The classic will survive another year, much to the dismay of people that don’t want to carry 40,000 songs around everywhere with them.
- iPhone 5: October. I think Apple have changed the cycle for iPhone, replacing the iPod in the pre-holiday prime time slot. Moving the iPhone hardware announcement away from WWDC means it gets laser focused attention. Which is important because this is a ‘major’ year of the iPhone - redesign, visually distinguishable from the previous generation: think iPhone->3G, 3GS->4.
I wouldn’t normally link or post infographics, but this is particularly striking and apt given the iPad is 1 year old.
Despite years of rumors, not one other company capable of building a competing device did so in the time leading up to the iPad’s release. In the year that’s followed iPad has gobbled up 90% of the market.
Remember Netbooks? All the time Apple was developing the iPad, pundits and analysts were screaming bloody murder that the MacBook Air *wasn’t* a netbook and that because it was not competing - Apple were missing a huge opportunity.
The reality was Apple let everyone else fight over that low-end, junk market for 18 months, then caught them all with their pants down, took photos and put them on Facebook.
14.8 Million in iPad’s in 2010 and even though people KNOW the new one is around the corner, Apple still cant make enough to keep up.
What’s a Netbook?
Speaking of making a lot of money, $20 Billion in a quarter and $4 Billion profit.
And that was before they released the shiny new, and much cheaper MacBook Air. Which I predict will sell like iPad’s…err…hotcakes.
Excellent article explaining Apple’s segmentation strategy and how brutally effective it is.
My favorite quote: “…the top three mobile handset unit sales ‘leaders’ (Nokia, Samsung, LG) are outselling Apple in raw units an astounding 23.5 to 1, yet for all of that effort, combined they are garnering only 82 percent of Apple’s profit level.”
Bottom line - Apple doesn’t do things conventionally and that makes them a stack of cash. Scrooge McDuck style cash.
Disney CEO, Bob Iger
He get’s it.
It’s a few months old but still astonishing. Imagine how those are going to look after the real iPhone 4 numbers are factored in…
In July 2002, Appled filed a patent for a “Breathing Status LED Indicator” (No. US 6,658,577 B2). They described it as a “blinking effect of the sleep-mode indicator in accordance with the present invention mimics the rhythm of breathing which is psychologically appealing.”
