Friday Apple Rumors: Macs Outpace PCs by Largest Margin in 5 Years

by Christopher Freeburn | February 21, 2014 12:49 pm

[1]Here are your Apple rumors[2] and AAPL news items for today:

Leading: According to a new report, Apple (AAPL[3]) saw even stronger Mac computer sales during the holiday shopping season[4], AppleInsider notes. Mac sales surged while sales of personal computers running on Microsoft’s (MSFT[5]) Windows continued to sink. Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf found that during the December quarter, Mac shipments jumped 18.1% over the prior-year period. Apple says it sold 4.8 million Mac desktops and laptops during the quarter. Wolf recently calculated that Apple has managed to keep the average selling price of a Mac computer at $1,300, despite rising tablet sales. Mac shipments outpaced the PC market by 24.7% during the holiday quarter. In fact, Apple has more than doubled its share of the personal computer market since 2005, rising from 2.1% eight years ago, to 5.5% last year. Apple’s December quarter performance was boosted by iMac supply constraints during the same time in 2012, when new super-slim iMac models were in short supply due to production problems.

Bad Fit: Apple’s colorful, plastic-backed iPhone 5c failed to wow consumers or analysts when it was released last year. Former Apple advertising executive Ken Segall says the reason the iPhone 5c proved disappointing[6] was that “Steve Jons was right” — Apple “doesn’t do cheap.” In a post on his blog, Segall argues that Apple creates great products for consumers who “are willing to pay more for these things.” He notes that the plastic-backed iPhone 5c wan’t necessarily a compromise in quality for Apple, but that consumers may have gotten the wrong idea from the company’s advertising. Segall notes that Apple chose to play up the plastic casing of the iPhone 5c in advertising, but that it may have backfired by suggesting that the iPhone 5c was a cheaper quality phone when compared to the iPhone 5s, which appears to outsold it more than two-to-one, despite a higher price. Recent rumors indicate that Apple plans to eliminate the iPhone 5c from its lineup when it launches its next-generation iPhone later this year.

Bigger: Apple is expanding its North Carolina data center[7], the Hickory Record reports. Apple operates a 500,000-square-foot data center in Maiden, N.C. Permits filed with local officials indicate that Apple plans to add a new 14,246-square-foot data center at the site. The new concrete-and-steel data center building will be 25 feet tall, according to the permits. Apple previously constructed a 21,030-square-foot satellite data center at the site in 2012. The earlier satellite data center reportedly cost $1.8 million to build. The cost of the newest data center building was not disclosed. Apple maintains two 100-acre solar power farms in the area to provide power to the data centers.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors[8] stories.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2014/02/friday-apple-rumors-macs-top-pcs-largest-margin-5-years/

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