Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock in premarket trading on Tuesday saw a little increase after Bernstein, an investment firm, backed the business after a report by a research firm that said Mac sales dropped significantly in the first quarter.
While Apple had previously guided to a “strong decline” in Mac revenue for this quarter, analyst Toni Sacconaghi, who has a market perform rating on Apple stock, said that data from research firms IDC and Gartner have not “historically” been accurate when predicting revenue related to Macs.
IDC reported earlier this week that Mac sales fared worse than the general PC market in the first quarter, falling by 40.5% from the previous year to 4.1M units.
Overall, sales of personal computers fell by 29% year-over-year to 56.9 million units during the time in question. This was due to a combination of factors, including poor demand, excess inventory, and the continuous worsening of the state of the global economy.
Regarding the larger personal computer market, Sacconaghi said that the statistics from IDC for the first quarter may have revealed some “incremental sequential channel inventory drawdown,” which suggests that underlying demand was higher than usual on a seasonal basis.
In a letter to investors, Sacconaghi said, “Moreover, we note that [year-over-year] growth was largely in line with last quarter, suggesting that demand may be bottoming.”
Sacconaghi said that he is “more confident” in HP’s capacity to meet or surpass projections than he is in Dell’s ability to do the same, but that there is no “significant downside risk for either.” Other PC suppliers include HP and Dell.
During premarket trading, the number of shares of HP increased slightly, while those of Dell decreased.
Apple Stock announced the opening of its first official retail shop in India last week. The store will be located in the financial center of Mumbai.
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