Record Mac sales for Apple

Despite economic slowdown

18 November 2008 12:21 GMT / By Katie Scott

Everyone else is sitting at home counting the pennies, but it seems Apple could literally be bathing in cash.

According to an analysis of 25 hours of sales of iPhones and Macs at a US retail chain, investment bank Piper Jaffray is claiming that Apple could equal or beat last quarter's record 2.6 million Mac sales and again sell more than 6 million iPhones.

The bank says that Apple is selling an average of 28 iPhone 3Gs per day which is down from 95 units per day in July, immediately straight after the handset launched.

OK so it's slowed down but analyst Gene Munster says that international sales, the Xmas shopping period and Best Buy's induction as an authorised iPhone seller will offset this.

"We believe iPhone units will decline 5-15% sequentially, which is above recent reports from Asian suppliers suggesting up to a 40% sequential decline", he told clients in a research report Monday. "We are currently modeling for an 8% decline [to 6.4 million units]."

Munster added that he think Apple will beat its 2.6 million Mac unit sales estimate for the current quarter.