During bleak economic times, companies need to welcome the faintest rays of sunshine. That appears to be the word from one analyst forecasting lower sales for Apple’s upcoming March quarter.
“We believe this data will be perceived as a neutral or a slight positive given the uncertainty surrounding the Mar-09 quarter,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told clients Tuesday.
Sifting through numbers from NPD and internally, Munster expects -6 percent growth for Mac sales, compared to the second quarter of 2008.
The analyst said lack of any major hardware announcements during Macworld Expo could hurt Apple’s figures. In 2008, Apple used the tradeshow to launch the MacBook Air.
Overall, Apple will report 4.8 percent sales growth, far below the 42 percent the previous year, Munster expects.
Munster expects Apple sold 2 million to 2.2 million Macs for the March second quarter, below the 2.3 million Macs sold a year ago.
IPod sales are also expected to trend lower with 9 million to 10 million portable music devices sold in the three-month period, according to the analyst. That’s a 6 percent to 15 percent drop compared to the 10.6 million iPods sold last year. Wall Street is projecting 9.5 million iPods sold for the March quarter.
Although Mac and iPod sales are predicted to be lower, iPhone sales of 4.4 million are projected, higher than the 1.7 million Q1 2009 iPhone sales, Munster added.
“Piper tried to paint the development as a good thing for Apple in that the projected numbers would match the consensus expectations of the financial community for Mac sales this quarter,” wrote CNET‘s Tom Krazit.
