Kenny Hemphill
Forget the much-hyped and as-yet-unconfirmed tablet. The big news is the unprecedented growth in Mac sales at a time of economic hardship.
Given the sheer volume of speculation surrounding the as-yet-unannounced Apple tablet, and the acres of space on the Internet devoted to the iPhone and its apps, you’d be forgiven for thinking that these are the only products on which Apple is currently focused. Far from it. Despite reports that CEO Steve Jobs has been devoting a considerable percentage of his working hours to the new device, the company is still very much interested in growing its Mac business.
If you doubt that, you need only take a look at analysts’ estimates for sales of Macs in Apple’s last financial quarter, October to December 2009. First, there was the news that NPD had estimated that sales of the iMac were up 74% year on year in October and November. It credited that rise with the introduction of the new range of iMacs. A spike in sales is common after Apple refreshes a Mac line, but those new iMacs weren’t available until 20 October, meaning their effect on sales was nonexistent for nearly half the period in question.
Another set of estimates, this time from Broadpoint AmTech, pointed to overall Mac sales of 3.3 million units, representing an increase of 8.5% over the same quarter in 2008. Broadpoint credited an increase in desktop sales as helping to achieve what would be Apple’s biggest ever Mac sales in a quarter if these figures were to be confirmed. The company said that sales of desktop Macs increased by 19% year on year. That these estimates came at a time when growth in the overall market in personal computer sales was growing at less than 3% a year made them all the more remarkable.
Those figures have been achieved despite widely reported problems with the graphics cards in 27in iMacs and complaints that the Mac mini is no longer the inexpensive bare-bones desktop Mac it seemed to be when it was first launched in 2005. And, of course, there was no new Mac Pro in October. In fact, Apple has barely marketed the Pro at all since it switched to Intel. The chassis remains the same basic design as that of the Power Mac G5 and updates are confined to one speed increase per year.
None of this was achieved by accident, of course. Despite apparently spending the lion’s share of its marketing resources on the iPhone, Apple has been pushing the Mac as hard as ever. The rollout of new retail stores may have stalled during the economic downturn, but Apple now has a significant presence in high streets and shopping centres in major population centres around the world.
The reason for such an aggressive march into retail isn’t to sell more iPods or iPhones, it’s to give as many people as possible the chance to get their hands on a Mac. Apple knows, as you and I do, that it’s only by using a Mac that you really ‘get it’. It’s a strategy that has been hugely successful and is a significant factor in the growth of Mac sales in recent years.
The sales figures for the first quarter, assuming that NPD and Broadpoint were reasonably close with their estimates, will go some way to reassuring Mac users, developers and the company itself that broadening its portfolio hasn’t had the effect of reducing its ability to successfully develop and market its existing products.
That’s in stark contrast to the initial years of Jobs’ current reign as CEO, when he reduced the product line-up to a two-by-two matrix consisting of professional and consumer desktops and notebooks. In those days, Apple was in dire financial straits, cash was running out, sales were poor and the company could ill afford to be distracted by trying to compete in markets where it had little experience.
The picture couldn’t be more different today. With tens of billions of dollars in the bank, one of the most valuable brands in the world and sales breaking records almost every quarter, the company is in rude financial health. It can afford to spread its wings and enter new markets, provided it chooses them carefully. So far, it has done precisely that, choosing markets where there’s demand that isn’t being fully satisfied and where Apple’s expertise and experience means it can develop products that will succeed where others have failed.
It did that in the MP3 player market with the iPod and in the smartphone market with the iPhone. And it, apparently wisely, chose to ignore the netbook market because it didn’t meet those criteria. Whether it’s as successful with the tablet as it has been with the iPod and iPhone remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome, though, you can be sure that the Mac is as important as it ever was to both Jobs and Apple.
