As Apple is preparing to release Mac OS X Lion to the world, the company continues to grow at an astonishing rate. Today we have news that the Verizon iPhone 4 helps Apple to become the fastest growing retailer in the US.
High demand for Apple’s products during the first three months of this year has seen the company’s sales rise by $4.6 billion. According to an article by Scott Patterson of USA Today that’s an increase of 80 percent compared to a year ago.
According to retail sales expert David Berman, this increase accounted for one-fifth of all sales growth by publicly traded retailers in the US. Some of it is down to poor sales from other retailers though, but also shows how the company is taking a bigger part of the market.
Berman, whose New York hedge fund Durban Capital owns shares in Apple, went on to say that the company’s sales are “mind-boggling”. Apple’s retail stores are leading the way with the company’s US growth, sales rose by 90 percent during the quarter to $3.2 billion with most of that in the US.
Sales of Apple’s iPhone were a large part of the growth with a rise of 113 percent compared to last year. In total US sales among public retailers rose by $23.2 billion during the first quarter, behind Apple the largest slice of sales growth came from Amazon and Walmart. Next Tuesday Apple is due to report its fiscal results for Q3, and is expected to post net income of $5.73 a share up from $3.51 last year.
Apple’s sales were boosted by the release of the iPhone 4 on the Verizon network, but as more people purchased iPhones sales of the iPod fell by 17 percent. It’s not just in the US that Apple sales have been growing, in the Asia-Pacific region sales rose by 151 percent to $4.7 billion in the quarter to March 26. Meanwhile in Europe sales grew by 49 percent to $6 billion.
Many analysts believe that Apple’s sales will continue to grow at double figure rates for the next few years. Joseph Beaulieu analyst for Morningstar thinks the company can achieve an average of 20 percent growth over the next five years.
According to Morningstar Apple are currently depending on the iPhone for around 40 percent of its sales. The spike in sales from Verizon could be short term but if the company did bring out the rumored cheaper iPhone, an even bigger market will be opened up.
Are you surprised at the sales figures from Apple?
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