PiperJaffray Looks Ahead To Apple’s Q2

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on February 17, 2009

PiperJaffray analyst Gene Munster just issued a research note looking at the tea leaves so far on Apple’s current quarter, its fiscal second. The upshot is that given the currently available evidence, he expects Apple’s results to come in about par with the consensus expectations.

He bases his observations on the latest data from market research firm NPD, which is itself based on sales data in the U.S. during the January. The findings: Mac sales were off by 6%, slightly worse than 4% drop the Street expected; Assuming that run rate holds, Munster says it suggests that Apple will sell between 2 and 2.2 million Macs in the quarter, which would be slightly down from the 2.289 million sold in the year ago quarter. But he reminds that a year ago, Apple had just released the MacBook Air and thus had a surge in sales making for “a tough comparison” during February and March. Factoring in the January sales plus assumptions for the remaining two months of the quarter implies a contraction in Mac unit sales on the order of 4% to 13%.

On the iPod side, which you should remember surprised everyone last quarter because sales outside the US were stronger than expected, NPD sales data, Munster says, implies iPod unit sales in the 9 to 10 million range. This would be a drop from 10.644 million units in the year ago quarter, or in a range between 6% to 15%, which the street’s consensus calling for a drop of about 11%. “Given concerns regarding iPod weakness, we believe the segment’s in-line performance relative to street expectations is a positive,” he wrote. He also expects average selling prices on the iPod to drop 3% from the holiday quarter, though he says NPD data shows ASPs were up 4% in January. Were ASPs to finish the quarter up, it would be usual: The last time ASPs in March quarter finished higher than in the holiday quarter was in 2003. However he says it’s hard to predict ASPs based on NPD sales data. So why would the average price paid be rising amid a recession? Two words: iPod touch, sales of which, Munster says, may exceed expectations during the quarter.

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