Apple will report selling another record number of Macs in the final quarter of 2009 when it unveils its financial figures later this month, a Wall Street analyst predicts.
Brian Marshall, of BroadPoint AmTech, estimated total Mac sales at 3.3 million units for 2009's fourth quarter. If Marshall's calculations are accurate, it would mean Apple broke the record sales of 3.05 million Macs set in the year's third calendar quarter by 249,000 machines, an increase of 8.5 per cent.
Year-over-year, Marshall's estimate of 3.3 million Macs would be a 31 per cent increase from the 2.3 million systems Apple sold in the fourth quarter of 2008. That kind of gain would be a return to Apple sales trends during 2008, when the company racked up impressive year-over-year increases ranging from 21 per cent in the third calendar quarter to a whopping 51 per cent in the first quarter.
Assuming Apple beats the industry average growth again in the fourth quarter of 2009 - as seems certain, even if Marshall's estimate is on the high side - Apple's sales will have outpaced the average in 20 out of the last 21 quarters.
The one exception: The first quarter of 2009, when Apple failed for the first time since 2003 to boost Mac sales year-over-year.
According to Gartner, global computer sales will grow by just 2.3 per cent during 2009.
Marshall also joined other analysts in predicting a resurgence of Apple's desktop sales by pegging the company's sales for the fourth quarter at 865,000 units, a year-over-year increase of 19 per cent and a quarter-over-quarter gain of 10 per cent.
Apple will issue its official sales numbers for the fourth quarter in the second half of January during an earnings call with financial analysts.
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