w********2
发帖数: 16371 | 1 Previously-released data from NPD on U.S. Mac sales for January and February
have demonstrated relatively anemic year-over-year growth, with January
sales tracking only 1% above the previous January's performance and February
sales coming in 4% higher. Still, analysts have suggested that ongoing
growth in international markets could compensate for stagnation in the U.S.
market as consumers continue to wait for product updates. Consequently,
analysts have generally been holding firm on their predictions of 15-20% Mac
unit growth on a worldwide year-over-year basis for the full quarter.
Some analysts had also held out hope that Apple could sneak in at least one
update to its Mac lineup before the end of the quarter to provide a spark
for Mac sales, but with the first group of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors not
launching until the end of the month, Apple was unable to update its main
Mac models within the first three months of the year.
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty is out with a new research note today
incorporating NPD's data on U.S. Mac sales for March, and as might be
expected given the lack of hardware updates, Apple continues to fall short
of analyst expectations, with Mac shipments down 4% year-over-year for the
first calendar quarter.
Huberty continues to believe that international growth will offset at least
some of the flat performance in U.S. sales for the quarter, although she
appears somewhat pessimistic that it will be able to reach her 15% growth
target on a global basis. Nevertheless, Huberty seems optimistic that
booming iPhone and iPad sales will make up for any shortfall on the Mac side
due to the balance of profits among the segments.
Although the US retail market improved in March, Apple shipment growth
decelerated as the company faced much tougher Y/Y comparisons due to a
notebook refresh this time last year. US retail data suggest Apple shipments
fell 4% Y/Y in C1Q12 compared to our estimate of 15% global Mac unit growth
. We expect faster international growth to offset some of the deceleration
in the US. In fact, the divergence between international and US growth has
accelerated from about four points in prior quarters to 15 points in C4Q11.
More importantly, we expect demand upside from iPhone and iPad (83% of gross
profit) to more than offset any Mac downside (9% of gross profit).
On a broader basis, the PC market is seeing even more substantial declines
in sales, with U.S. PC sales tracking for declines of 10-15% year-over-year
for the quarter. That performance is, however, better than Huberty had been
modeling for, and major PC manufacturers such as HP and Dell could see some
upside if their final results fall in line with data released so far. |
|
