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As Apple Shares Slide, What About Sales?
Apple Inc. tends to prove unstoppable even when other computer makers falter. In the most recent quarter, shipments of Macs surged 41%. That's nearly three times the 15% global growth rate for PCs in general.But in the current quarter, as markets slide, banks go belly-up, and consumer confidence plunges, even the Apple (AAPL) growth engine may hit speed bumps, say some analysts who are revisiting their estimates just a month before Apple is due to report quarterly earnings for the period that ends Sept. 30. Concerns, including slumping demand for laptops and a strengthening dollar, helped drive down Apple's shares more than 29%, to 126.84, on Sept. 23 from 179.32 on Aug. 14.One of the bright spots of Apple's last several quarters has been its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines of notebooks, which in the quarter ended June 28 accounted for more than $2.2 billion, or almost 30% of sales. In a Sept. 22 research note, Samuel Wilson of JMP Securities in San Francisco pointed to potential weakness in notebook sales.Stealth SurveyWilson called 20 Apple stores and 10 Best Buy (BBY) stores and concluded that demand might soon weaken for the higher-priced MacBook Pro, which starts at $1,999, vs. the less expensive MacBook, which starts at $1,099. "When asked whether we should consider a MacBook or a MacBook Pro, we were repeatedly told that the Pro is designed for the design community, with a high-end video card and a large screen, and that we would be better off with a MacBook for the cost," he wrote. Employees at Apple stores proved 40% more likely to push the MacBook Pro than their counterparts at Best Buy, he found.Chip suppliers in Asia report that Apple has been canceling orders for computer memory chips, according to Wilson. "The reasons for the cancellations might...
SDK Shoot-Out: Android vs. iPhone
Neil McAllister delves into the Android and iPhone SDKs to help sort out which will be the best bet for developers now that technical details of the first Android smartphone have been announced. Whereas the iPhone requires an Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5.4 or later, ADC membership, and familiarity with proprietary Mac OS X dev tools, the standard IDE for Android is Eclipse. And because most tasks can be performed with command-line tools, you can expect third parties to develop Android SDK plug-ins for other IDEs. 'By just about any measure, Google's Android is more open and developer-friendly than the iPhone,' McAllister writes. This openness is essential to Android's prospects. 'Based on raw market share alone, the iPhone seems likely to remain the smartphone developer's platform of choice â€" especially when ISVs can translate that market share into application sales,' McAllister writes. 'In this race, Apple is taking a page from Microsoft's book, while Google looks suspiciously like Linux.'
Video-Game Sales Slide, But Analysts Optimistic
Sales of the Nintendo Wii game console rose 37 percent in September, but the rest of the industry saw losses. It was the first time in more than two years that the market for consoles and games has seen an overall decline.In all, consumers purchased 687,000 Wii consoles, according to the NPD Group. That marks an increase from 501,000 in September 2007. But the industry's total sales fell seven percent to $1.27 billion."Last September, the industry saw the release of Halo 3, so that's probably affecting the numbers," said Michael Cai, a video-game analyst at Parks Associates. The Microsoft blockbuster sold 3.3. million titles, which boosted overall industry sales 75 percent for September 2007, according to NPD Group."With just one month of data it's difficult to generalize whether this is going to be a downward trend or not," Cai said. "Even a recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of decline. So it's difficult to make a conclusion from one month of data."Measuring Next-Gen SuccessIndeed, despite the down numbers and the economic uncertainties, NPD reports that the health of the video-game industry is strong. For example, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for Microsoft's Xbox 360, September's hottest title, sold 610,000 units.Nintendo is readying for the holiday season, the most important time of the year for the video-game industry, by upping its shipment volume 50 percent in the fourth quarter. The company hopes to avoid lost sales from any potential shortages. Nintendo has no plans to cut the Wii's already market-low $249 price for the holidays, according to the company.It's a different story for Microsoft. Redmond slashed the price of the the Xbox 360 Arcade, its low-end model, from $279.99 to $199.99 in September. The Xbox 360 is still selling well, pushing out 347,200 units in September to secure second place...
‘iPhone Girl’ Photos Shines Light on Worker Conditions
An unnamed girl employed by the Shenzhen plant in China, operated by subcontractor Foxconn Technology Group, has become popular overnight after photos of her appeared on an iPhone customer's device. A British customer reportedly turned on his iPhone last week to find photos of a plant worker posing and making the peace sign. The user posted the photos and this note on the Web: "Not sure if this is or is not the 'norm,' but I just received my brand new iPhone here in the UK and once it had been activated on iTunes I found that the home screen (the screen you can personalize with a photo) already had a photo set against it !!!! It would appear that someone on the production line was having a bit of fun -- has anyone else found this?"A spokesperson for Foxconn said it was a "beautiful mistake," according to published reports. Some, however, believe it was a publicity stunt to show a happy worker in a clean factory environment after a 2006 investigation by a British newspaper said the plant forced employees to work 15-hour days and live in overcrowded dormitories while earning just more than US$49 a month.Factory AuditAfter the British paper's report, Apple sent its own team of auditors to China to conduct random employee interviews, view living conditions, and dispel any allegations of mistreatment, child labor, or substandard living conditions. In August 2006, Apple released a report of its findings, admitting it found some mistreatment of workers that violated its zero-tolerance labor policy and its supplier code of conduct. That code specifically states that "suppliers may not use any form of forced, bonded, indentured or prison labor," and "all work must be voluntary."Apple's audit also found that employees were working long hours. "We found no instances of forced...
Apple Is Greener, Greenpeace Says, But Has More To Do
At last Tuesday's laptop event on the Apple campus in Cupertino, Calif., the environment got a lot of attention. CEO Steve Jobs, who has been pushing for a "greener Apple" for months, flatly declared that the new Mac laptops, with their unibody aluminum construction and less toxic parts, "are the industry's greenest notebooks."The verdict from the planet's leading environmental group, Greenpeace, is a qualified yes. "Compared to where Apple was before Tuesday," said Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International's toxics campaigner, "its laptops are definitely better. That in and of itself is a good thing. But not all toxic pieces have been eliminated yet."Almost Toxic-FreeHarrell said Greenpeace had been hoping Apple would be the first to announce a laptop manufactured without any polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or brominated flame retardant (BFR) materials. Both produce toxic chemicals when burned, which frequently occurs when computer parts are shipped overseas for disposal."They fell slightly short of that goal," Harrell said. "They didn't quite get the PVCs out of the external power cord. If Apple can achieve that, then we could unequivocally say that they've put the rest of the computer industry on notice that these materials can be completely eliminated."In a press release Tuesday, Apple said it did eliminate all PVCs on internal cables in its MacBook laptops, and avoided the use of BFRs altogether. In addition, Apple said, the new MacBooks meet Energy Star 4.0, EPEAT Gold, and RoHS environmental standards.Harrell predicted that Apple's ranking on Greenpeace's environmental scale will rise in part because of the reduction in the use of toxic chemicals and because the new MacBooks use significantly less packaging.Apple said it measures its recycling performance by a standard first suggested by Dell: The percentage of material sold (by weight) collected in recycling. In 2007, Apple recycled 18.4 percent of the material it...
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