Mac Musings

Apple's Second Quarter

Daniel Knight - April 21, 2000 -

I'm sure you've already heard the news: Apple had yet another profitable quarter. Considering the company was "beleaguered" and "almost dead" three years ago, we now take such announcements in stride.

The profit of $233 million compares very favorably with $135 million in the same quarter last year. An extra $98 million is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Better yet, Apple sold over one million computers in the second quarter (Jan-Mar), including 350,000 Power Macs and 100,000 PowerBooks. Of a total of 1,043,000 computers, that leaves 593,000 units divided between iMacs and iBooks.

Combine this with 1.35 million Macs sold during 2000Q1 (Oct-Dec), and Apple has sold 2.4 million computers this fiscal year. That puts them on pace for something in the 4.5 million range, which compares very favorably with 3.45 million sold in FY99.

The numbers I can't find are those for iBook and iMac sales during the last quarter. In 1999 the iMac sold at a 40% higher pace than the Power Mac, so we can estimate 480-500,000 iMacs were sold. My guess is the actual figure was a bit lower than that, maybe in the area of 425,000. That leaves room for about 175,000 iBooks, far under the 250,000 unit per quarter production capacity we've heard about.

Whatever the final figures, it looks like Apple is on target to repeat in FY2000 what it did in FY1999 - a 25% increase in unit sales.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The new Apple has virtually unlimited production capacity, since they are willing to outsource production of the computers. When Apple decides it's time for a new desktop machine or notebook, all they have to do is design it and find the right company to build it for them.

As Apple has shown consistenly since Steve Jobs became iCEO, if they build it, the Mac buyers will come.