Apple Thoughts: February was a Rough Month for Apple Sales

"U.S. retail Windows PC unit shipments rose 22 percent in February, despite the week economy. By comparison, Mac unit sales fell nearly 17 percent. Apple's stronger category, notebooks, could no longer defy gravity. Windows laptop unit sales jumped 36 percent year over year, while Mac notebooks declined 7.5 percent."

Probably not to big of a shock here that the overall sales were down 16% from a year ago, but a bit of an eye-opener when you compare the drop to the 22% gain in PC Sales. The biggest drop was in desktop sales from a year ago, but there was a drop across the board there. The biggest spread was in laptops, down only 7.5%, but for PCs they were up 36%, a spread of almost 44%! Pricing and advertising dollars spent are the comparisons that are focused on in the article, noting that Microsoft spent a lot of advertising dollars marketing Windows whereas Apple ads haven't been as frequent. I have to admit I don't recall seeing too many ads from Apple leading up to the announcements of the 17-inch MBP (I've seen a lot of these ads after announcement however), iMacs and Mac Minis. I think that is typical though, seems to make sense not to waste ad dollars on products that you are going to be replacing or supplementing. I'm wondering if it could also be the lull before expected announcements, people not purchasing because they are waiting to see what Apple is going to announce. It could also be the influx of cheap netbooks into the market that may have been a factor, but they don't split them out specifically so hard to say. The bright side of things according to the analyst is that with the new iMacs, Mac Mini and shuffle the sales figures should be up for March.