MacBook Air-Related Delayed Gratification Could Juice Apple Earnings
With refreshed hardware and a brand-new OS on the market, Apple’s September quarter is likely to be another triumph for Cupertino, despite the comically low guidance the company provided when reporting third-quarter earnings.
iPad sales are booming and the iPhone 4 continues to sell well despite its age. Now, with new MacBook Airs and Mac minis on the shelves and the Mac App Store serving up one million downloads of Lion in a single day, Apple is poised to reap the benefits of what up until last week was pent-up demand for those products, particularly the MacBook Air. According to Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes, Apple’s latest ultraslim laptops will give the company a nice little financial bump for the remainder of the year.
“We believe that the new MacBook Air products in particular could be a source of upside for Apple in the 2nd half of CY11,” Reitzes says. “For the September quarter, we estimate Mac unit sales to grow 18% y/y, which may be conservative given anticipation for the MacBook Air. Also, we believe that there was a modest pause of demand ahead of Lion, which consequently should release at least some incremental sales in the upcoming quarters in our opinion.”
Seems entirely reasonable. As Apple COO Tim Cook said during the company’s July 19 earnings call, “I think some customers have delayed [Mac purchases] until Lion becomes available.”