Munster: Mac sales off to 'slow' start in April, but Q3 looks good
Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster issued a report on Apple's Mac sales so far this quarter. According to US sales data compiled by NPD, Apple was off to a "slow" start in April, with only 9 percent year over year growth from April 2010 sales. However, Munster points out that by the same timeframe in 2010, Apple had updated its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, which spiked sales. This year, so far, only the MacBook Pros have been updated.
Wall Street is expecting Apple to post 22 percent sales growth for Q3, which ends in June. Munster says Apple shouldn't have a problem hitting that number, despite the slow April start. Munster says the "Comps [comparable timeframe sales] ease dramatically in the month of June," which only had an 11 percent YOY growth last year. Munster also notes that iPod sales seem to be tracking better than expected. He had originally expected iPod sales to decline by 10-15 percent, but now says the unit decline could be better than he was expecting.
