Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Bootz]

Apple Expected to Carry “Blockbuster” Mac Sales into February

Posted 03/08/2010 at 8:05:50am | by J.R. Bookwalter



Analysts are already hard at work predicting that Apple’s February, 2010 Mac sales will be “blockbuster” -- particularly when compared to early 2009.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is telling investors that soft Mac sales in February, 2009 will help lift Apple’s sales in the same month this year, according to AppleInsider.

“We expect the strong (year-over-year) growth in NPD data that we saw in (January) to continue in the month of (February),” Munster writes in a note to investors on Monday morning. “We believe this presents a buying opportunity ahead of NPD data for the month of February on 3/15.”

As Munster notes, Mac sales in January, 2009 were down six percent from the year prior. But that helped lift the January, 2010 sales figures with a growth of 36 percent year over year, and “implied a range of 2.6 million to 2.8 million Mac sales in the first quarter of calendar 2010.”

The analyst anticipates the same kind of growth for last month’s sales when the numbers are released on March 15. “If Apple sells 2.8 million Macs in the first quarter of 2010,” AppleInsider notes, “it would represent a 26 percent increase over the start of 2009. In all, the first half of 2009 was down one percent year-over-year.”

AppleInsider also notes that while Mac sales were sluggish in the first half of last year, Apple saw record growth in the second half of the year -- including a boffo holiday quarter where the company sold a record 3.36 million Macs, which lifted its profits to $3.38 billion.

Back in January, Munster called 2010 the “Year of the Mac” and has been quite bullish on Apple stock for this year.