Apple Sells Record Number of Macs for q4 2007

by Jeff Carlson

If you're thinking that Apple has transformed itself into an iPod company that also makes computers, it's time to realign your view. The company reported today that for the fiscal quarter ending 29-Sep-07, it shipped 2,164,000 Macintosh computers, besting last quarter's record by 400,000 (see "Apple Marks Best Quarter of Mac Sales for Q3 2007," 2007-09-07). One year ago, Apple shipped a then-record of 1.61 million Macs. This year's shipments helped Apple bring in $904 million in profit on revenue of $6.22 billion.

Don't expect the iPod division to be shuttered just yet, however. Apple sold 10.2 million iPods, compared to 9.81 million in the last quarter and 8.73 million in the year-ago quarter. But the more interesting number is the iPhone, which sold 1,119,000 units during the quarter to bring the total sales to 1,389,000 (the discrepancy comes from the first 30 hours the iPhone was sold, which was at the end of the previous fiscal quarter).

Apple also noted that international sales accounted for 40 percent of the revenue for the quarter. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said that Apple finished the fiscal year with $15.4 billion in cash and no debt, and expects revenue of about $9.2 billion for the first fiscal quarter of 2008.

(FROM TidBits)

SWOT analysis of Apple Inc.

Strengths

Main Apple strengths are:

• The oldest computer hardware and software producer in the world.

• They have highly increasing percentage of sales and shares on both, PC and digital player market.

• Brand loyalty.

• They have highly functional products with unique and attractive design.

• Has control over the product, as they produce both types of products, computers and software which they operate with.

• Is currently successfully diversifying into digital players’ market.

• Their products are now fully compatible with all existing software and all programs, which are compatible with Windows.

• Their products have a very simple interface, which is easy to understand.

• Ability to have huge marketing budget which is spent on promotion and advertising. This also makes Apple marketing very effective, as it helps them identify market trends and find out exactly what they customers want.

• Apple is well known company, established many years ago, and has a very good, well experienced management team, which not only helps Apple to increase their sales and profits, but gain from managerial economies of scale, as it has highly skilled employees.

Weaknesses

Apple main weaknesses are:

• Apple products are tend to be very expensive or more expensive than similar products on the market made by other companies.

• There are still many people who give their preferences to Windows.

• Price discrimination. In different countries Apple charges different prices for their products. For example, in America iPod is more than twice cheaper than in Britain.

• Recently Apple has produced and distributed some faulty items, which didn’t work properly, had problems with the software, which resulted in a negative response to the quality of Apple products.

• Rapid growth can lead to cash flow problems in a big firm like Apple.

• Too many products

• Limited product range (E.g. limited range of colours for iPods)

• Such big companies like Apple have hierarchies and spans of control which might cause problems with managers and some members of staff at the bottom of the hierarchy. E.g. they may feel distant and insignificant and, therefore, work inefficiently.