iPod touch, iPhone rise to the occasion in latest quarterly results
By Ronald O Carlson
Whereas Apple experienced a decline in Mac sales—down 3 percent in a market that fell 8 percent last quarter—iPhone, iPod and App Store sales picked up the slack, allowing the the Cupertino, CA-based computer and widget maker to once again post stellar quarterly results. That said, perhaps the brightest star in this gumbo of products and services is the iPod touch, which continues to find a warm welcome with users.
Yesterday, when Apple announced results for its second fiscal quarter of 2009, as expected, it said that Mac sales fell. However, they didn’t fall nearly as much as the overall market or as much as some analysts had predicted. So much for the not so bad news.
The big news that no one was expected was that the company sold more than 11 million iPods, representing a 3 percent growth rate when nearly everyone thought they would report a decline. To no one’s surprise, the iPhone came in high both for Apple (3.79 million units) and AT&T (1.6 million units) in the first three months of naughty nine.
However, the star product hidden in this mix was the iPod touch, the bridge between Apple’s computer product lines and the burgeoning ultra-portable computer market.
“From a mix point of view, the iPod touch is clearly a runaway hit,” said Tim Cook, Chief Operating Officer.
Previously, Apple had said that iPod touch and iPhone sales totaled 30 million units by the end of 2008, Yesterday, the company said combined sales now total 37 million with 3.79 million iPhones sold last quarter, meaning the iPod touch saw sales in the neighborhood of 2.2 million units out of a total of 11 million iPods sold.
With that info as a background, it’s easy to see why Cook is so enthusiastic about the touch, as a base model sells for $229 and whereas the recently updated iPod shuffle sells for $79. Moreover, the “funnest iPod ever” is targeted at mobile game enthusiasts, a group that helped push games to the top of the App Store chart (iTunes) and drive nearly one billion downloads. Oh, and Apple’s App Store was another reason the company was able post yet another record quarter.
Watching Apple execute is just such a beautiful thing…
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