Good times for Apple: Sales up 58% on Macs – attribute success to iPad and iPhone?

Great 3^rd quarter results

The third quarter report for the sales figure of Apple Inc. is released and it’s a win-win situation for the folks at Apple with their sales figures explunge to great heights. Especially the 58% rise on Mac sales is just great. As for the iPad and iPhone, they have done business as expected. Some of the analysts have predicted that the iPads will bring untoward effects to netbook sales, but it seems that the desktop PCs are doing just fine.

A ripple effect?

When Apple launched iPad and iPhone, they were very bullish about these two gadgets. But on October 18, when they released their quarterly revenue report of more than $20billion, they had noticed a very significant figure which they might not have predicted earlier. In their 3^rd quarter, Mac sales went up by an amazing 58 percent.

Ezra Gottheil, the Technology Business Research (TBR) Analyst told eWEEK that: “What we’re seeing is that the iPad is cannibalizing notebook sales — and Steve Jobs confirmed that — but it may have driven desktop sales.”

The Halo effect of iPad

“There’s a halo effect,” Gottheil said. “If you have an Apple product” — such as an iPad or iPhone “you’re likely to wander into an Apple store, and there are all of these lovely PCs to play with.”

In a survey conducted by TBR, they found out that people with Apple’s gadgets don’t want to switch to other manufacturers; they want all the pie offered by Apple. The research also revealed that people with iPads use their gadgets at the living room or the bedroom and mainly do email and surfing. In short, iPad is their solution when they are not at their desks.

On Oct. 19^th, Brian Marshall, Gleacher & Co’s Analyst also encouraged the investors by asking them to “take a more ‘holistic’ approach to Apple.

Other Tablets join in

ABI Research in its report on Oct. 15^th said that the unveiling of various tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab is further slowing the pace of netbook sales. The analyst from Gartner, Mikako Kitagawa has also said in a report on Oct. 13^th that “while tablets don’t replace primary PCs, media tablets have led “consumers and channels to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to buying a new PC.”

Good growth for MacBooks as well

Mr. Gottheil, the analyst from TBR again adds that in the third quarter, the netbooks from Apple also enjoyed a decent market share which is up by 17 percent. Gottheil feels that the reason for which the sales shows an upper trend because the figures are probably from the markets where Apple addresses and “It is definitely growing faster than its competitors in the U.S.”

A record performance

Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer said in the September quarter, Apple has broken all the previous records and set new records for Mac, iPhone and iPad sales. “We set a new quarterly record with sales of almost 3.9 million Macs, exceeding the previous record established in the June quarter by over four hundred thousand, which represents a 27 percent year over year growth,” Oppenheimer said.

Conclusion

Folks at Apple accomplished what they might set out to do. Gottheil also added that “Despite Apple aggressively pricing the iPads, the prices on the lower-priced Macs and MacBooks aren’t way up there like they used to be.”

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