Apple’s Black Friday bestsellers

i am 59 yrs old and had never used an apple product until two monhts ago when my son convinced me to buy a mac pro. Now I have an Ipod and just bought iphone and I love it all.

Apple surely has proven to be one of the most recession resistant companies. Now that doesn’t mean they are not effected, they just have not felt the downturn as much as some other companies. They are still prone to the natural fluctuations of the market. Black Friday may have fared well for them, but today they are down, as consumers become more bearish (http://predictwallstreet.com/forecast.aspx?symbol=AAPL). No doubt such pessimism coupled with low consumer spending will bring them down. Looking at this sentiment chart (http://predictwallstreet.com/forecast.aspx?symbol=AAPL) its obvious AAPL has experienced many bearish downturns in the past month…

People take an econ and accounting course. Even if sales are up profits can go down. Cutting prices directly affects profits and margins.

Every store was crowded on Friday so anyone who says that meaning Apple results are going to be great is a buffoon.

If you think Apple is going to have a great Christmas then you all should be buying the stock just like those a few months ago when it was in the hundreds.

No company escapes a recession.

Suppose a rookie baseball player leads the league in home runs. The next year he falls to third in home runs but is also third in batting average.

Is year two a failure because it didn’t match the home run totals of year one? Or is year two an even greater success because it shows the player wasn’t just a flash in the pan?

As a coach, I’d rather have a player who plays at a high level year in, year out over a player who has one amazing year but then fades away.

Apple does not need to exactly match its performance from last holiday season for one reason - the growing financial momentum of iPhone.

Thanks to iPhone’s subscription revenue model, Apple will have $1.056 BILLION in iPhone revenue for this quarter (Q1′09) even if they don’t sell a single iPhone. If they sell 6 million, they will have $1.543 Billion in revenue. This translates to a neat little $220 million in earnings or $0.25 per share. That’s 1/5 of the way to their conservative guidance for Q1′09, a great start.

And, that does not include Apps from App Store and iPhone accessories.

In short, thanks to the growing financial contribution of iPhone, Apple can exceed earnings while having a modest holiday season in other products.

By the way, I believe that they will have a more-than-modest holiday season and completely exceed earnings, but we’ll just need to see. Consider: (1) international iPhone sales; (2) growing iTunes downloads; and (3) the growing number of people buying Mac notebooks who would have never considered a Mac, even last year. Those Amazon numbers tell you ranking but give you no idea of volume. Of course a $1,500 MacBook will not outsell a $350 netbook that didn’t even exist last year.

Shaw Wu simply doesn’t understand the Apple strategy, as spoken by Steve Jobs himself. Steve won’t cheapen Apple products because they want a certain type of customer. The type of customer that’s willing to spend the money for Apple products. Read about it in my blog and podcast…
Blog-podcast: http://tinyurl.com/6jm3sp

Apple has arguably the best balance sheet of ANY company trading on the stock market. In fact, I would venture to say Apple’s balance sheet is strong by a factor of 2 over any other company trading. Value investors, growth investors, SMART investors will realize this and buy the stock. That is my $0.02. IF you don’t know how to read a balance sheet, I suggest you study up and do the research yourself, like I have.

http://www.techflash.com/Enderle_Microsoft_Ballmer_conflicting_reality34812539.html

-Zinny-
You meant “positive being brushed under the rug”, I suppose. <- I agree. To any investor, a more expensive model being bought is more significant, as it will generate more profits. How about some stats that show real sales, instead of what stats the reporter wants to mention!

This is the best mind-control propaganda negative reporting: “This year, the same computer selling on Amazon for $968 failed to make the top 25 bestseller list, although a more expensive model with a bigger hard drive came in at No. 13.” High-light the negative, brush the negative under the rug! Great reporting! Fortune is a low quality magazine.

I was in Paramus at the Garden State Plaza this Friday and the store was packed, standing room only. I think the ‘experts’ are gonna be surprised by how well Apple does this season.

I think the iphone is the best phone ever made right now.. now everyone is coming out with their versions but that cant mess witm apple

White mac bk selling at $1388sgd with free windows xp or mac office! There a 5 vendors selling apple products as compared to 1 year ago, there was only 1 vendor.
Demand for apple product is clearly up!!!
There was no price competition between the vendors with exception to the above and freebies like free keyboard holder and discount for apple care. Seems like apple managed to control prices.

Just watch this. Honolulu Apple store on Black Friday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB74Asy2rXs

well, i can report that the apple store in the king of prussia mall in pennsylvania was so crowded it was nearly impossible to move around in there.

Ah, the eBay spin doctors are at work again! Paypal transactions were up this year because eBay is now forcing Paypal on their buyers and sellers. They banned checks and money orders last month, so now the only real option is Paypal. EBay’s sell thru rate is still a dismal 40% and their fixed price sell thru rate is under 20%. Those are the numbers eBay doesn’t want their sellers to know about. I’ll stick with Amazon, thank you. Never had ANY problems with them as a buyer or a seller, while I have had many problems with eBay.

Apple has added many stores this year. Some of those who would have bought from Amazon will instead shop at Apple stores especially since Apple will match other stores advertised prices.

Brad is on the right track. If Apple makes $300 in profit on a $1200 MacBook. If they sell the same Macbook for $1000, total sales would have to Triple to get the same profit. A $200 price drop is unlikely to generate 3 to 1 sales.

Yeah, tough competition on the price cutting side. I wonder how the bigger price cuts at retailers like Best Buy and elsewhere were luring last years online shopper to risks their lives the old fashioned way.
Club discounts were also considerable for apple products and at no cost to Apple. Also, apple stores have a bigger presence now than a year ago. In any case, a good season for Apple and for American retail after all - looks like some gadget stocks are infact CHEAP!

I was in the Apple store in Orland Park and the line was out the door. Spoke to the sales maanger for 5 minutes and she said that sales were tremendous and they haven’t skipped a beat in this economy.

The goal is to make money, not sell as many units as possible. Apple probably four times the profit on each sale as #1, #2 and #3. MONEY is the goal, not stats.

I was at the Apple store on Fifth Ave/NYC on Saturday and had to wait on line to get into the store-which was mobbed. There was a brisk line while I was at the checkout counter!