Last week Apple reported third-quarter revenue of US$83 billion, in line with estimates from Wall Street. Three of Apple’s major product categories—the Mac, iPad and its wearables division—suffered sales declines from a year ago.
However, in his latest “Power On” news letter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says he’s not worried about the Mac’s future.
He writes: MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are Apple’s two most popular Macs. Sales of both of those machines probably came to a halt for nearly four weeks during the quarter. That’s because the M2 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro were announced on June 6—but didn’t actually go on sale until weeks later. The MacBook Pro arrived June 24, and the MacBook Air didn’t hit stores until July 15.
The release delay for those Macs probably meant a significant pause in sales for the company’s top-selling laptop lines. The result: Third-quarter Mac sales came in about $1 billion lower than in the year-earlier period. It’s also worth noting that more people were splurging on work-from-home equipment in 2021 than they are now.
I imagine Mac sales will rebound next quarter, and I remain optimistic about the category. The problems in the most recent period were probably more of a blip than the start of a downward trend.
You should see a major bump from the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air tucked into Q4 sales. And Apple will get more momentum from the launch of new Mac minis and high-end MacBook Pros later this year. By next year you’ll see a new Mac Pro, iMac and 15-inch MacBook Air.
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