Our take...
iPod sales remained relatively flat over the past three quarters: this year Apple sold 11.01m, 10.22m and 10.18m in first, second, and third calendar quarters respectively. This is broadly in line with the usual seasonality of this product, although typically there would be a slight quarterly growth in the third calendar quarter as iPod sales would start to pick up in September following the iPod range update and building up towards the holiday season spike. Year-on-year, the last quarter iPod sales were down 7.9 per cent. Revenue per iPod unit grew from $146 to $154 reflecting the continuing cannibalization of 'traditional MP3 players' by iPod Touch – the company revealed that sales of this particular model grew 100 per cent year on year. As Screen Digest previously discussed, diminishing 'traditional' iPod sales are part of a broader PMP market saturation dynamic.

The erosion of iPod sales was however offset by the strong performance of the iPhone. With more than 7.4m units, Apple had its strongest iPhone quarter to date. While it is still too early to assess seasonality for iPhone due to the recent global roll-out, empirical evidence point to strong performance between July and Christmas, and thus a potentially good calendar Q4. Both the iPhone and iPod Touch contribute to strengthening the position of the iPhone OS as a prime platform for mobile computing. The increased installed base will likely boost further the performance of the App Store, which passed the 2 billion downloads mark in September, after 14 months of operation.

Driven by a 35.3 per cent increase in laptop shipments, Apple Macs continued to outperform the total personal computer market. The decline in shipments in Mac desktop computers (7.3 per cent on previous quarter and 15.9 per cent year on year) is in line with the general portable computer proliferation. Screen Digest estimates that in the US laptops have accounted for over 50 per cent of computer shipments in 2008 and will constitute more than two thirds of shipments by 2011.