Resellers report slowdown in Mac sales

Apple resellers have reported a slowdown in Mac sales as potential customers delay purchases until major software packages are available on new Intel-based machines.

Ben Morgan, proprietor at AppleCentre Taylor Square in Sydney, said the reseller had experienced its slowest start to the year on record.

“Customers are looking at the Intel Macs, but when they come in, they find there’s no software for [them],” Morgan said.

Morgan suggested that it would take at least another six months before major software companies had software optimised for the Intel-based products.

Apple began shipping its first Intel-based Macs in February. Apple executives have said that some software for Intel Macs runs slower than on previous systems. Adobe would not have optimised versions of Photoshop available for Intel-based Macs until early 2007.

Apple's US-based CFO Peter Oppenheimer said earlier this week that the company anticipated the “pause” in sales.

AppleCentre’s Morgan said the reseller’s hardware sales were down between 25 and 30 percent so far this calendar year on the corresponding period last year.

“It’s a bad thing for profitability and the bottom line, but it’s to be expected," he said. "The same thing [happened] with the switch from OS 9 to OS X.”

Morgan agreed with Apple CEO Steve Jobs' notion that 2006 was a year of “transition” for Apple. "Last year’s figures were quite strong, but they’re not getting the growth that they want to be getting at the moment,” he said.

One Apple reseller, who did not wish to be named, said he had no “planning capacity” in relation to the release of forthcoming Intel-based Macs as Apple was quite tight-lipped about release dates.

He expected that some iBooks and G5 high-end machines would be the next models to go to the Intel platform but didn’t know when.

“Without knowing a lot about what’s going to happen, there is a chance we could be left with stock we can’t sell or we won’t have enough,” he said.

“It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of months with the G5s. We’re going to have to order up a large amount of stock until the software is available. Adobe is dragging the chain a bit.”

Tim Kleeman, director at national Apple reseller Next Byte, was coy on the extent of the problem, but conceded that there was some slowdown at the higher-end of the Mac spectrum.

He said high-end customers would need to see software on Intel-based platform before they do their next “rotation” of machines.

apple ben hardware intel byron kleeman mac morgan tim