Apple Still Seeing Strong Mac Sales Growth Amid Easing iMac Constraints

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster today issued a new research report sharing data from research firm NPD covering Apple's U.S. Mac sales for the January-February timeframe, revealing that Apple's sales are currently up 14% year-over-year. The performance is down somewhat from the 31% growth seen for January alone, but remains very solid as Apple's iMac shortages appear to have eased.

We have analyzed domestic NPD retail data for the months of January and February which suggests Mac sales were up 14% y/y through the first two months of the March quarter. As we have previously discussed, we believe the Y/Y improvement is driven by Apple beginning to improve supply of iMacs as the company noted the product was constrained in the December quarter. CEO Tim Cook noted that iMac sales were down 700k units y/y in December (we note iMac sales are likely far less impacted by iPad, thus the vast majority of the y/y unit decline in December was likely supply).

Despite the strong performance, Munster is maintaining his estimate of an overall 5% decline in worldwide Mac sales for the quarter, even though Apple's worldwide numbers have frequently outperformed the U.S. data gathered by NPD.

On the downside, NPD's data shows a return to Munster's expectations for the iPod, with the two-month timeframe seeing sales down 16% year-over-year compared to Munster's projections for a 17% decline. iPod sales had been up 3% in January.

While strong Mac sales are a good sign for Apple, the increasing dominance of the iPhone and iPad in the company's product portfolio means that strong Mac sales have less of an impact on Apple's overall financial performance. In the most recent quarter, Macs accounted for just 10% of Apple's revenue, compared to 20% for the iPad and a dominant 56% for the iPhone.