Apple’s latest quarterly earnings report sheds some light on how and where its various Mac models are selling. Sales of the iBook and Power Mac G4 were favorable, while the PowerBook G4 and the iMac saw a decline. It’s also clear that sales in Japan suffered greatly, while sales in Europe actually picked up a bit.
System by system
iMac sales were down. From quarter to quarter, iMac sales dropped from 306,000 units to 294,000 units shipped, a 4 percent drop. By comparison, Apple moved 571,000 iMacs for the same quarter last year. The number of iMacs shipping this quarter represented about US$276 million in revenue for Apple.
Apple moved 106,000 units of the PowerBook G4 in the third quarter, compared to 57,000 PowerBook G4s for this most recent quarter. The PowerBook G4 pulled in about $127 million for Apple in Q4.
News was better for the Power Mac G4, however. Although unit sales were still down year over year, Apple saw a 10 percent increase from quarter to quarter. The Power Mac G4 moved 225,000 units in Q3, while it moved 248,000 units in Q4. That’s compared to 376,000 units for Q4, 2000. The Power Mac G4 is Apple’s biggest ticket item, too — sales of the desktop computer accounted for $465 million in revenue.
The shining star of Apple’s product line is clearly the iBook. During a conference call with analysts, Apple CFO Fred Anderson was quick to point out that iBook sales in the education market had tripled in the fourth quarter. In fact, iBook sales were up overall — way up — both from quarter to quarter and from year to year. Last year, Apple moved a paltry 89,000 iBooks during its fourth quarter, and during the previous quarter, Apple moved about 190,000 iBooks. For this most recently reported quarter, that number was 251,000. Outside of the Power Mac G4, the iBook was Apple’s biggest moneymaker — it pulled in $334 million for the company.
A breakdown by geography
Although Apple’s publicly available information doesn’t let us take a look at how many units of which specific models were sold in what geographical location, it is possible to extrapolate a few facts.
To no one’s surprise, the Americas represented Apple’s biggest single operating segment. The region was responsible for consuming 532,000 of the 850,000 units moved during the quarter. That translated into $873 million of the quarter’s $1.45 billion revenue. Unit sales increased for the region by 32,000 units quarter to quarter, as well — a modest increase of 6 percent.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa also saw a quarter to quarter increase. The region moved 173,000 units in the fourth quarter, 21,000 more than Q3 — an impressive boost of about 14 percent. The region was responsible for about $293 million of Apple’s quarterly revenue.
During the conference call with investors and analysts, Anderson mentioned that revenues from Japan were weak not just for Apple, but for everyone in the industry. Specifically, Apple saw a 30,000 unit drop from Q3 to Q4 — a total of 98,000 units were sold, resulting in $171 million in revenue. That’s a 23 percent drop in units from quarter to quarter.
The remainder of Apple’s sales — 47,000 units, worth about $113 million — came from Asia Pacific, Apple’s retail stores, and non-geographical revenue. That number was flat from Q3.