Apple’s September quarter saw, among other things, the release of Snow Leopard, the latest upgrade to its OS X operating system and the first public appearance of CEO Steve Jobs, who’d been on a medical leave of absence for a liver transplant. It was also the first full period since the company launched the iPhone 3GS in late June. No wonder it was a blowout quarter.
Demand exceeding supply for the Apple iPhone 3GS is one of the big takeaways from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s earnings preview for Apple’s September quarter and it obviously bodes well for the company’s investors. Munster sees Apple beating the Street’s estimates thanks to increased Mac and iPhone sales.
Demand for Apple’s iPhone 3GS, which topped one million handsets sold in its first weekend at market, has surpassed even the company’s presumably aggressive targets. Reporting earnings Tuesday, Apple said it sold 5.2 million iPhones in its third quarter and finally copped to something that’s long been apparent to anyone who’s been keeping an eye on its iPhone availability widget: Demand for the new iPhone 3GS is far outpacing supply.
Looks like Apple may have another hit on its hands with the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company is reportedly having a hard time keeping the machine in stock as it heads into the back-to-school buying season. And for good reason: It’s a significant upgrade at a lower price. Starting at $1,199, it’s $100 less than the original aluminum MacBook it replaces.
Now that sales of the Pre in the states have tapered off to a point where supply and demand are roughly in parity, Palm is gearing up to bring the handset to Europe. In a statement issued this morning, the company said Telefónica’s O2 subsidiary will carry the Pre in the U.K., Germany and Ireland, while its Movistar brand will offer it in Spain.
Palm seems to have satiated pent-up early demand for its new Pre smartphone, constrained supplies be damned. In a pair of investor notes issued today, analysts at Pali Research and JP Morgan say that sales of the Pre have tapered off to a point where supply and demand are roughly in parity.
Palm shares are on a tear this morning, rallying on the company’s fourth-quarter financials and the promise of its new Pre handset. Palm is trading at $15.30 as I write this, up more than nine percent in reaction to the company’s claims that the Pre and Palm’s webOS are off to a strong start.
Palm’s market cap is currently $1.95 billion. A year ago it hovered around $400 million. Amazing when you think about it, really. On the promise of the Pre and the company’s new WebOS operating system alone, Palm has added more than $1.5 billion to its market cap.
Palm has shipped 100,000 Pres since the device debuted on June 6. This, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Paul Coster, who estimates that more than 50,000 phones were sold in the first two days it was available and says the company may have sold another 50,000 in the days that followed.
To the NAND flash memory business, Apple is a market maker and mover–and an increasingly insatiable one. In 2008, Samsung was forced to reduce its supply of 8GB-equivalent NAND flash chips to other customers to fulfill its obligation to Apple. What’s past is prologue. To wit, reports today claim Apple has placed an order for 100 million 8GB NAND chips from Samsung–an order so large it is reportedly causing a supply shortage.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
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