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By Tom Krazit, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: July 19, 2006, 4:59 PM PT
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Macintosh shipments were up 12 percent compared with last year, Apple Computer said Wednesday during its third-quarter earnings call. That's in contrast to a shipment increase in the second quarter of only 4 percent year over year--something that Apple described as a "pause" in buying activity.
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Macs accounted for 55 percent of Apple's revenue during the third quarter, ended July 1, said Peter Oppenheimer, the company's chief financial officer. Notebook shipments and revenue both increased by 61 percent, and Apple believes it doubled its share of the notebook market in retail channels, he said, citing data from research firm NPD.
About half the Macs sold at Apple's own retail stores during the quarter were bought by people who had never owned a Mac before, Oppenheimer said. That is roughly the same percentage that Apple has seen in recent quarters.
Educational customers also helped Apple's Mac sales during the quarter, Oppenheimer said. The new notebooks were well-received by the educational community, which likes to make purchasing decisions by the end of the last quarter, analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies said. One downside of the Mac results was the performance of the desktop segment, which is tied to Apple's professional customers. The Power Mac desktop, used by creative professionals who need the most performance Apple can provide, has not been refreshed as of yet with Intel's newest chips. As a result, desktop shipments and revenue declined compared with last year.
However, Apple is expected to fix that pretty soon, with the launch of Intel's new Core 2 Duo processor coming in a few weeks and Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference scheduled to visit San Francisco [August 7-11 http://developer.apple.com/wwdc]. Apple hasn't said whether it will use the Core 2 Duo or the Xeon 5100 processor in the new professional desktops, but it's likely to let its developers know before or during that conference.
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