You can’t say I didn’t warn you. I told you of three important things to keep an eye out for in Apple’s
1. Retail update
CEO Tim Cook likes to tout Apple’s retail figures, and he started by saying that Apple will be expanding into its 13th country this week, Sweden. Apple is now up to 380 total stores around the world. Still, Apple hasn’t expanded as aggressively as it had planned with retail in China, with just six stores in the Greater China segment, including Hong Kong. Back in 2010, then retail chief Ron Johnson was targeting 25 stores in China by this year. He has since moved over to J. C. Penney; that goal is far out of rich at this point.
Last quarter saw 83 million visitors in Apple stores.
2. Mountain Lion is eating Lion
The latest version of OS X, Mountain Lion, has been downloaded 7 million times already since its release in July. The first four days saw 3 million of those downloads. In June, Cook had said that the Mac installed base is now up to 66 million.
That was about three months ago and, over the past three years, Apple has averaged roughly 3.9 million Mac units sold per quarter, so the installed base should be approaching 70 million. Some of these sales are probably upgrades, as older models are retired or discarded, but Mountain Lion penetration is probably just shy of 10% at this point, after just two months.
3. We’re No. 1 in notebooks!
Cook also said that Apple has claimed the No. 1 spot in domestic notebook market share for the past three months, thanks in large part to the strength of its MacBook Air lineup. In July, it claimed 27% of the market. That shows how relatively ineffective Intel’s
July is also the month when researchers Gartner and IDC said that Ultrabooks had little to no effect on the PC market, despite lofty expectations.
4. We’re No. 1 in tablets!
No one was surprised when Cook touted the iPad market share figures, showing the tablet’s continued domination of the growing market, and even that the iPad’s market share increased over the past year.
| Market Share | April - June 2011 | April - June 2012 |
|---|---|---|
| iPad | 62% | 68% |
| Other | 38% | 32% |
Source: Apple.
The iPad comprises 91% of Web traffic generated from tablets, with Cook taking the opportunity to sneak in a zinger: "I don't know what these other tablets are doing. They must be in warehouses or on store shelves, or maybe in someone's drawer."
Cook pointed out that Apple sold 17 million iPads last quarter, which we already knew, adding, "Now to put this in perspective, we sold more iPads than any PC manufacturer sold of their entire lineup."
Nearly all the Fortune 500 companies -- 94% to be precise -- are either testing or deploying the iPad in their enterprises. They’re also investing in building custom internal apps, which Cook says is something they’ve never done before on the PC.
5. Carrier partnerships
I already told you not to expect any major carrier partnership announcements, since CFO Peter Oppenheimer already said this quarter wouldn’t see any meaningful additions. There weren’t really any hints of a deal with China Mobile
Apple said that the iPhone 5 will be available on 240 carriers in 100 countries by year’s end. Here’s what’s really incredible about that statistic though: Apple currently offers iPhone distribution on just over 250 carriers throughout the world. That means that within just three months, the company will roll out the new device internationally, and penetrate 96% of its existing carrier partners (or new ones).
If you thought the iPhone 4S rollout was the fastest product deployment ever for Apple -- because it was -- wait until investors get a load of the iPhone 5 rollout.
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