Apple Black Friday ‘Better Than Expected’

9:13 am, December 1st, 2008, Ed Sutherland

In spite of the general economic downturn, ‘Black Friday’ sales of Apple computers were “better than expected,” analysts told investors Monday.

Like past Black Friday sales, Apple offered discounts on seven products with an 8 percent discount.

However, Mac sales we more than six times what they were in November, according to Piper Jaffray. Analyst Gene Munster said an average of 13 Macs per hour were sold Friday compared to two computers per hour in November. Munster based his numbers on 10 hours of monitoring five Apple retail stores.

Friday, Apple cut its “unibody” MacBooks by $101 and $51 discounts on the $999 white plastic entry-level MacBook. One-day price reductions of $51 on the entry-level 2.4GHz iMac and $101 for the 2.66GHz and 2.8GHz aluminum all-in-ones were also unveiled.

iPhones did not share in the same level of consumer enthusiasm. Munster said iPhone sales averaged 3.4 per hour compared to 1.3 per hour in November.

Although the analyst expects the iPhone will receive a boost in holiday sales, the impact will be “minimal.”

In a wider review of Black Friday Apple sales, Deutsche Bank said “demand for Apple was solid considering the macro backdrop.” Both Mac and iPod sales for the day likely were “modestly above” Deutsche Bank’s estimates. The firm, which reviewed retail and online sales at more than 125 storefronts, expects Apple to report 5 million iPhone sales for the quarter.

Deutsche found the new MacBooks were popular Black Friday offerings with 2GHz and 2.4GHz MacBooks outselling the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

Best Buy locations reported strong demand for the iPhone and shoppers at AT&T stores preferred the lower-priced 8GB iPhone. The reverse was true for iPod shoppers: the 16GB nanos were outselling the 8GB nanos, according to Deutesche.

Posted by Ed Sutherland in News, Retail Stores | Comment on this article