Ahead of Wednesday’s report for the first quarter of fiscal 2009, a prominent Apple analyst projects Mac sales rose between six percent and 10 percent in December.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told investors Monday Apple likely sold 2.45 million to 2.55 million Macs during the quarter, recovering from November when Mac sales suffered a double-digit decline.
Using consumer sales data from research firm NPD, Munster said Mac sales in December rose 4 percent, a jump over -1 year-over-year growth reported for November.
iPod sales grew at a faster pace then expected during the December quarter, according to Munster. Apple sold between 19 million and 20 million iPods for the period, beating Wall Street’s consensus for 18.6 million portable music devices.