Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Musings

Macintosh Unit Sales Grow 43% vs. 2004

Dan Knight - 2005.04.14 - Tip Jar

Stunning. That's the word that comes to mind on hearing Apple's financials for quarterly sales.

The other sites are headlining $290 million profits or 5.3 million iPods sold - and that's definitely good news. But the big news is a 43% growth in unit sales.

If Apple can continue that trend, unit sales for FY2005 should be in the 5.0 to 5.5 million unit range. This from a company that has struggled to sell 3-4 million units per year since the late 1990s.

The only Mac area where sales were down compared to a year ago and to the previous quarter was Power Macs. iBook sales were down against the holiday quarter, but they were also up 25% compared to a year ago.

Money

Revenue for the quarter was up 70% over 2004, this in spite of new, low cost items (iPod shuffle, Mac mini); blowing out discontinued iPods; and reduced prices on some units - again, especially iPods.

The iTunes Music Store brought in $216 million during the quarter, up 22% from the holidays and up 260% over a year ago.

Software, which includes OS X, saw sales of $239 million, an increase both sequentially and year-over-year. With the release of Tiger at the end of this month, that segment of Apple's business should do especially well over the current quarter.

Apple also announced that in the future they will not break down sales figures in iMac, Power Mac, iBook, and PowerBook categories. Instead, they will only share raw desktop and portable sales figures.

What It Means

Apple is profitable. Very profitable. Revenue skyrocketed, unit sales grew, and gross margin increased to 29.8% - two percent higher than a year ago. They're doing something right.

While Mac unit sales rose 43%, computer revenue only increased 27%, accounting for 62% of total quarterly revenue. iPods accounted for 31% of quarterly revenue. With iPods outselling Macs five-to-one, Apple is becoming known as the iPod company.

Apple now has two solid revenue streams - computers and music - and there does seem to be an iPod "halo effect" that makes iPod owners more favorably disposed toward Macs.

All told, it looks like a very rosy future for Apple Computer. The iPod has become a smash hit, iPod shuffles dominate the flash market, and the Mac mini is a runaway success.

With a new version of OS X (10.4, a.k.a. Tiger) due in a couple weeks, Apple should see another surge in hardware sales - and a boost in software sales, since there are more people who can migrate to Tiger than to any previous version of Mac OS X. LEM

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Musings

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.