Analysts predicting boffo ‘back-to-school’ season for Mac sales
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Aug 21, 2008 at 1:39pm
The investment banking division of the Royal Bank of Canada said Thursday that Apple’s back-to-school promotion is showing signs that it will drive the company to a “record-smashing quarter” in which sales of Macs could exceed three million, reports AppleInsider.
Writing to clients, analyst Mike Abramsky cited proprietary data from his firm’s recent IQ/ChangeWave Panel that “suggests that massive back-to-school Mac sales” could see the Cupertino-based company report year-over-year growth of 44 percent to 3.04 million units for the three month period ending September.”
Specifically, Abramsky pointed to “unprecedented intentions” on the part of consumers during what has historically been only Apple’s second strongest Mac quarter, notes AppleInsider. His firm’s study found that 34 percent of respondents intend to purchase a Mac notebook in the next 90 days, while another 30 percent plan to buy a Mac desktop.
“We forecast Apple’s global PC share to rise to 4.2 percent [in 2009], from 2.9 percent [in 2007],” he said, adding that every 25 basis points of market share gain will equate to $1 billion in incremental revenue and $0.15 in per share earnings.
Meanwhile, analyst Jim Goldman of CNBC says that investors ought to be focusing on “the back-to-school shopping season, and what some say could be Apple’s most aggressive seasonal campaign ever.”
He praises Apple’s past performance during this time of year and adds: “As we all know, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. But historically, Apple has risen to the occasion, performs and delivers. Fundamentally, technologically, I see nothing suggesting that Apple can’t match that performance yet again.”
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
