Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Sinclap, since I actually work in the private company you are talking about, I wonder where you're coming up with your 150% Y/Y number. What little I have heard from home office would have total chain increase in the 20-30% range, subject to final audits.
Sales have been remarkably good compared to other retail companies, and we on the floor have been slammed for many weeks now. Causes would obviously include the bankruptcy of Circuit City and the closing down of Comp USA.
Our management had foreseen a serious slowdown for the holidays and consequently canceled a lot of orders. We got caught with our pants down and ran out of product storewide. They are busily trying to restock us for the coming weeks. I had a week with no iMacs over the holidays, so my sales were okay but not what they should have been.
Steve Jobs is vegan. em.
Mac sales start to slow. Not recession-proof after all:
"Even Apple Inc. is beginning to suffer in this year's dismal holiday season, and worries are mounting the recession will weigh on its business next year.
Apple, which has outpaced the overall personal computer market this year despite its strategy of eschewing discounts, showed its first signs of weakness in November."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122938758242108907.html
The pricing stubborness must stop.
Netbooks are careening out the door, in addition to $300-$400 windoze laptops. Have heard a few reports of people installing OS X on those little cuties.
The popularity of the netbooks has been hurting the PC sales associates because of the lack of attachments and, most importantly, service contracts they can sell with them. In response, management introduced a new lost-cost 3-year warranty on them. You may or may not know that we earn much higher commissions on plans than on the other stuff.
I would really like to be able to sell cheaper Macs--not cheap, just cheaper. Give me a modernized Mini and a $600 MacNetBook and watch me roll.
We remain the exception to the dismal rule this season, with Y/Y sales up by double digits. The demise of competitors is an obvious contributing factor, combined with our loyal customer base, fiscally conservative management (private, no debt), and a few specials such as this:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0283482
Thanks for asking.
Annie, the happy team is elsewhere, or refraining from posting in this place where the ghouls often run roughshod. Luckily for them, we are First Amendment first people who haven't even asked for a most offensive image to be removed from our AAPL board.
Paul Krugman summed it up well IMO:
November 5, 2008, 8:25 am
The monster years
Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.
What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.
And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”
Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness.
OT - Where's fibait?
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/24/obama-rally-prompts-denver-to-beef-up-sunday/
(answer: underneath the flag)
Colorado shows some luv
I've heard that would be for MacWorld SF in January, from a person who says a relative is working on that project. FWIW
Strangely enough, we were out of just about every laptop but recently received a bunch of MacBooks (we have a $100 rebate on the $1299 model) and a couple each of the MBPs. Should have some nice markdowns by month end.
From here, today's market drop appears to be the final straw. Our sales have been perking along nicely...until today. Even the retired doctor who has been intending to buy a 30-inch ACD decided to put it off after spending most of the morning on the phone with his broker.
This would be a lovely day for impeachment.
WaMu sent me an email today, subject was "The holidays start today."
They want ME to save money.
Annie, you're right. Somebody will own my mortgage, someday, somewhere. Maybe they'll lose it, hehe.
Sorry for your investment loss. I hate these people, these unspeakable parasites. I'm ready to light the torches and storm the citadel, but I suppose I'll just get tasered or pepper-sprayed by Blackwater.
These are not fun times.
but I just couldn't part with my AAPL, being an old sentimental fool. em
terrific. Guess whose mortgage is with WaMu?
That was the last item on my 3-month plan of going financially "offline." Got out of the mutual funds at Fidelity, went all Bellco credit union banking and investment. Was planning to switch the mortgage before it adjusts (from 5.0%) next year.
Guess I'll join JimIsJim down at the underpass. Do they have wifi down thar?
correction to previous post re MacBook shortage: we just got a shipment of MacBooks, enough to get us through another 7-10 days IMO
connectors are the same, the problem is new cases. Gawd, the cases....dimensions changed on new iPhones, Touches too
Sales up Y/Y ~ 20%. Micro Center is benefitting from Chomp bankruptcy. Imagine if we had a "fundamentally strong" economy.
BTW, no shipments of laptops or even iMacs for 2-3 weeks. We've got close to no product on the floor. Hurry up, Apple, with those refreshes.
New pods barely trickling in. SKU nightmare.
Traffic is high, year-over-year sales up around 20%, Mac sales growth even higher. Comp going belly-up is obviously a factor, but Micro Center can count on a loyal customer base.
Heh, I even received a beautiful bouquet yesterday from a happy client...
Yerroner said, "Another unintended consequence of sky high energy? If prices continue going up at this rate, eventually, nobody will be able to ship stuff from Asia to the US consumers profitably and a lot of assembly/manufacturing jobs will return to the US as it will be cheaper to pay higher wages vs. too high shipping costs... industry will have to get "local" again to be profitable."
Case in point, Micro Electronics house brand PowerSpec peecee assembly lines are coming back home to Ohio, or so I'm told.
P.S. - Does anyone know how much oil is coming out of Iraq, or was the whole point of destroying that sad land to keep production off-line?
Fond memories of dilleet. He was the spice of life around here--the curmudgeon's curmudgeon. Cyberspace won't be the same without him.
P.S.--I'm visiting my kids in Europe, a Mother's Day trip from them, and spent an hour or so yesterday in the Regent Street Apple store in London. That place was hopping.
I know, that's why I always mute even his radio spots. Just happened to catch the bls on the Air America homepage.
One more insufferable Mac user coming up.
Mac v PC from a new switcher:
http://airamerica.com/content/lionel-switchs-pc-mac-and-finds-political-analogy
I usually don't like this Lionel guy, but he's pretty funny on this topic (Hillary is peecee, Obama is Mac...)
Chintziest "upgrade" ever, at least on the 3 base models. Same HD (sheesh), same graphics, only new Penryn chips. We don't care about the installed RAM because we can max them all out for $80.
At least the people who bought the $999 20-inch iMacs this month won't feel overly disappointed. It was a record-setting Mac month, BTW.
tomm, those one-hour sessions cost two bucks each.
As with the Macs, the money is in the "attachments."
BTW, our Apple month has been spectacular. We beat last year's April numbers in the first two weeks and are on track to double the monthly dollars and units.
And a little birdie told me no iMacs have shipped in two weeks...I'm glad we still have enough of the current ones with the $200 rebate.
Update on Micro Center Mac month: iMac rebate goes from $100 to $200.
http://www.microcenter.com/
I guess we really want to blow these babies out. I'm doing my part.
No, Blue, Brownie is in town again but the horse crowd doesn't want anything to do with him. He's got a weekend talk radio show...
Speaking of those new apps for iPhone/iTouch, I sold an Airport Extreme Base Station and two ITouches to a customer tonight. He and his Arabian Horse judging buddies are going to be testing a new app for wirelessly posting competition results from ringside.
What will they think of next?
Just in case you missed it, April is Mac Month at Micro Center:
http://microcenter.com/
Some of the best deals we've ever had. Sales have been heavy all week despite the current economic climate. One couple I know came in yesterday and said they wanted to buy 3 Macs. I thought they were pulling a belated April Fools on me, but, no, they bought 2 MacBooks and a Mac Pro--replacing an aging G4 PM and a G4 Cube, and adding a MacBook for their teenaged son.
20% or more on iPod accessories, etc.
It's been like that all week.
semi-OT: 10 minutes of 5x product placement on the Daily Show:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Daily_Show_Hillary_comeback_like_beer_0306.html
I'm supporting 15.4" MBPs...
Disappointing upgrades overall.
Nice but overdue graphics memory on Pros.
Where's the LED on the 17"? Still missing.
Multi-touch okay.
Overdue hard drive size increase on both line-ups.
Was hoping for Blue-Ray drives now that the war is over.
Laptop sales have been slow recently, but iMacs flying out the door. Hope this will help a bit. New laptops apparently on hand already when I go in this morning.
Little birdie singing product announcement Tuesday 2/26. em.
My January paycheck sez Mac sales are tanking, and February is off to an even worse start. Just hoping for some of those tax refund dollars going into Macs.
Recessions suck.
yup, I'm hearing almost daily complaints from my customers about the India "support." Very bad move for Apple...and for me trying to sell AppleCare.
just my size. short getting shorter old fi. em
yerronner, you forgot the three-star Underpass Deluxe. em
New 8-core beast announced before MacWorld:
http://www.apple.com/macpro/
Store down.
Thanks for the interesting article. Today I sold 7 Macs to first-time buyers who were obviously craving that sophisticated simplicity. An all-switcher day.
Compatibility over here.
My 2001 Brother HL-1240 laser printer, my 2003 Canon 9900 scanner, and my 2007 Epson R260 photo printer are all working fine with Leopard.
I notice improved system speed. Overall, I dislike the finder eye candy, but then my tastes run to non-shiny and de-blinged stuff.
A friend really likes Back to My Mac because he can do iChats with his cats when they're home and he's not.
whoa, nelly!
The boot camp beta expired, but that does NOT mean you can no longer boot into the windoze partition you have already created. It just means that you have to use 10.5 if you want to make a new windoze partition on a Mac that doesn't already have one. Boot Camp is a utility.
"Apple is disabling Boot Camp Assistant on Dec. 31, 2007. They are not disabling Boot Camp partitions. I checked through Apple's site, and this information is weirdly missing. They told me this in a press briefing (I write for The Seattle Times), so it's odd that it's not better explained.
They said the assistant will stop working on Dec. 31, so you won't be able to make changes to any Boot Camp beta settings. You can still use the partition. Leopard's Boot Camp feature can upgrade beta partitions. "
(from apple.com support discussion page)
booting is what I meant to type, not booking. em
Yikes, tomm, have you tried repair permissions from the Leopard install disk? Sometimes booking from that volume will repair things that the built-in disk utility can't.
Have you done all the software updates?