Edible Apple

AppleInsider reports that Apple sales this Black Friday weekend went well despite less than ideal economic conditions.

“Crowds remain the norm in the Apple Stores that we visited, with some having lines outside the stores even after the initial early-morning rush,” Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey wrote in a report summarizing his firm’s observations on Friday. “Checkout lines also seemed healthy throughout the day and Apple continues to take advantage of its ‘instant checkout’ throughout its Stores to speed purchases for Macs and iPods.”
 
…Over at Kaufman Bros., analyst Shaw Wu had similar observations about Mac sales during Black Friday, which he believes were helped by big discounts from third-party retailers and unadvertised price matching by Apple. In a note to clients Monday morning, he also pointed to strong iPod sales, noting that traditionally well-stocked Amazon.com is reflecting backlog of several iPods, including the iPod touch.

“iPod touch was surprisingly stocked out and now has lead times of 11 days for the 8 GB model and three to five weeks for 16 GB,” he wrote. “This is likely due to unexpected strong demand and we find this interesting as iPod touch is Apple’s highest-end iPod.”