Analyst: Mac sales up 31% for January 2013
Despite ending on a down note for the first quarter of Apple's 2013 fiscal year, Mac sales seem to be on the rise. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has crunched the latest NPD sales figures and concluded that US sales of Mac desktops increased by 31 percent in January when compared to the same month last year. This is despite the fact that the wait time for iMac orders is still greater than two weeks in the US and even longer in other parts of the world.
Still, Munster notes that Apple has seen improvements in its shipments of the machines since the end of 2012. If you recall, Mac sales were down 17 percent for the quarter ending December 31, 2012. For its part, Apple has said that it isn't entirely sure it will be able to meet demand for iMac during its fiscal second quarter. It remains to be seen if the trend of increased sales will continue through the end of March or if this was just a jump created by initial orders being filled.
In other sales-related news, Munster concluded that iPod sales actually climbed 2 percent in January versus the sale month last year. Piper Jaffray had previously predicted a 17 percent decline in iPod sales for the January through March quarter, so it'll be interesting to see where things end up.
