Mac sales up, iPod sales down.

[Walter Soyka]

It’s not surprising to see iPod sales drop. Don’t the iPhone and iPad make the iPod redundant for most people?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Walter Soyka] “Don’t the iPhone and iPad make the iPod redundant for most people?”

If you use an iPhone, then yes! It mentions it briefly in that blurb.

But

mac sales are still going up.

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “But mac sales are still going up.”

As they have been for some time — but Mac sales were only 20% of revenue for fiscal 2011 [link]. iPad sales were 19% of revenue and iPhone sales were 43%.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Jeremy Garchow]

I love it when it’s “only” 20%.

If 20% of business went away, I’d be really sad about it, as I’m sure Apple would be too.

I’ve seen the numbers, I am just pointing out that mac sales are still rising which could mean the MacPro might have some life even though people talk about it like it’s already dead.

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I love it when it’s “only” 20%.”

Macs used to make up nearly 100% of Apple’s revenue. I’m not saying that the Mac platform is inconsequential to Apple. I am saying that Apple’s growth is not driven by the Mac platform.

[Jeremy Garchow] “I’ve seen the numbers, I am just pointing out that mac sales are still rising which could mean the MacPro might have some life even though people talk about it like it’s already dead.”

True. We won’t know for sure until Apple refreshes or EOL’s it.

I’d love to know for sure how many Mac Pros Apple really sells, but I think we can put together a pretty good guess.

According to CNET, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro make up 74% of Mac sales [link], and the iMac leads the Mac Pro in desktop sales. A little back-of-the-napkin math tells me that Mac Pro sales thus cannot account for more than 2.6% of total revenue.

With $108 billion in annual revenue, and a made-up average MacPro order of $3,500 (the base price of the middle-of-the-line model), Apple might be selling a little more than 802,000 Mac Pros annually. Given a total of 16.735 million Mac units sold in FY11 [link], Mac Pros might make up 4.7% (a touch less than 1 in 20) of all Mac sales by volume.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Jeremy Garchow]

There was an article speculating on how much Apple made on a computer sale, they actually made more on MacPros. Let me find it again I’ll have to dig for it.

*Edit – here’s the blurb: https://blogs.computerworld.com/19195/apple_kills_the_mac_pro_it_doesnt_matter

I have also been thinking about this. Does a MacPro really need Thunderbolt?

I don’t think so anymore, as it already has connections faster than 4x PCIe. Other computers don’t so Thunderbolt is an obvious advantage.

From a marketing standpoint, do you need Thunderbolt just to give consumers a “shiny new toy”?

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “There was an article speculating on how much Apple made on a computer sale, they actually made more on MacPros. Let me find it again I’ll have to dig for it.

*Edit – here’s the blurb: https://blogs.computerworld.com/19195/apple_kills_the_mac_pro_it_doesnt_matter“

That article shows average revenue for notebooks and desktops; I don’t see that it breaks out margins or profit.

[Jeremy Garchow] “I have also been thinking about this. Does a MacPro really need Thunderbolt? I don’t think so anymore, as it already has connections faster than 4x PCIe. Other computers don’t so Thunderbolt is an obvious advantage.”

I think that the Mac Pro having Thunderbolt would actually make Thunderbolt more valuable, not the other way around. If Mac Pros had Thunderbolts, I could buy Thunderbolt RAID storage and move it freely from a MacBook Pro to a Mac Pro. I could use the same storage in the office and on the road. As long as the Mac Pro lacks Thunderbolt, it reduces Thunderbolt’s usefulness.

Imagine if your portables shipped with Firewire, but your desktops shipped with SCSI.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Walter Soyka] “That article shows average revenue for notebooks and desktops; I don’t see that it breaks out margins or profit.”

You’re a tough crowd lately. So they make more revenue on desktops. Yes, it doesn’t measure profit. Not sure if we will ever get that, or how much of those desktops are iMacs.

“Take a look at the per unit revenue:
Breaking down Apple’s financial statements you’ll see the company makes an approximate average revenue of $1,313 per desktop it sells. In contrast, it makes a similarly approximate average revenue of $1,268 on each portable Mac.”

[Walter Soyka] “I think that the Mac Pro having Thunderbolt would actually make Thunderbolt more valuable, not the other way around. If Mac Pros had Thunderbolts, I could buy Thunderbolt RAID storage and move it freely from a MacBook Pro to a Mac Pro. I could use the same storage in the office and on the road. As long as the Mac Pro lacks Thunderbolt, it reduces Thunderbolt’s usefulness.”

So you do think that it needs a shiny new toy. 😉

Would you really buy a 5 or 4 drive raid and haul it around with you?

I guess I have always has studio storage and mobile storage, so a lack of thunderbolt on a MacPro wouldn’t bother me so much.

Will there be bandwidth limitations as suggested here: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/20302

What’s the point of a 4x MacPro?

[Walter Soyka] “Imagine if your portables shipped with Firewire, but your desktops shipped with SCSI.”

Exchange FireWire with SATA and fibre or SAS with SCSI and I’d say it’s rather common, no?

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “You’re a tough crowd lately. So they make more revenue on desktops. Yes, it doesn’t measure profit. Not sure if we will ever get that, or how much of those desktops are iMacs.”

My bad — I misread your other post and thought you were suggesting that Apple would keep Mac Pros around because they were more profitable than other lines. Sorry about my misunderstanding!

[Jeremy Garchow] “What’s the point of a 4x MacPro?”

I don’t want to see Thunderbolt replace PCIe on the Mac Pro, but I do want to see it on the Mac Pro. It’s the network effect — the value of Thunderbolt (and therefore Thunderbolt peripherals) increases as it more devices support it.

Craig Seeman keeps pointing out how nice it will be to move TB devices (storage, video capture, whatever) from machine to machine as needed. He’s right, but Thunderbolt isn’t much of a connection standard if it doesn’t come standard.

[Walter Soyka] “Imagine if your portables shipped with Firewire, but your desktops shipped with SCSI.”

[Jeremy Garchow] “Exchange FireWire with SATA and fibre or SAS with SCSI and I’d say it’s rather common, no?”

Your turn to be the tough crowd? I specifically mentioned Firewire and SCSI because they are external connection standards. The fact that you could buy a Firewire peripheral and plug it into any Mac post 1998 or so was a big deal.

Are you really arguing that Apple ought to leave Thunderbolt off a future Mac Pro because it wouldn’t be necessary?

Bringing this back to your original post, I absolutely agree with you that the Mac platform as a whole is still significant to Apple, and that all the talk about the Mac Pro is speculation at this point. None of us know what Apple will do until they do it.

My point was that the Mac Pro is a much, much smaller part of the Apple pie (ha!) than the Mac platform as a whole, or than their sizable mobility business. Also, the Mac Pro doesn’t seem to fit in well with the their overall consumer-cloud-entertainment-mobility strategy, so there is a real basis for the speculation.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “”Take a look at the per unit revenue: Breaking down Apple’s financial statements you’ll see the company makes an approximate average revenue of $1,313 per desktop it sells. In contrast, it makes a similarly approximate average revenue of $1,268 on each portable Mac.””

I just wanted to come back to these numbers for a moment, because they show the sorts of computers that regular consumers (i.e., non-video customers) are buying.

Apple’s average revenue on portable Macs is $1,268. The MacBook Air starts at $999, and the MacBook Pro starts at $1,199.

Apple’s average revenue on desktop Macs is $1,313. The Mac Mini starts at $599, the iMac starts at $1,199, and the Mac Pro starts at $2,499.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events