24/7 Wall St.--The Channel Checkers Survey Of Apple (AAPL) Sales

The latest 24/7 Wall St.–The Channel Checkers survey of Apple (AAPL) stores shows that the company is holding the line on pricing and this should help earnings.

Over the past week, the survey checked Apple Stores to gauge trends in sales of iPod’s and computers. We asked the following questions:

1. Are you discounting any iPod’s?
2. What is the best selling iPod model?
3. Have you sold more iPod’s in the past month than in the previous month?
4. Are you planning on discounting computers soon?

• 87% of respondents said they were not discounting iPod’s currently;
• 63% of respondents said that the iPod Touch was the best-selling iPod model;
• 23% said that the new iPod Shuffle was the best-selling model;
• 57% of respondents said they had sold more iPod’s in this past month than in the previous month;
• 63%  of respondents reported not discounting computers or any kind. 37% said they were discounting computers;
The conclusions of the survey:  Apple stores appear to be holding the line on pricing. This trend has been consistent throughout 2009.  We believe that the pricing discipline could positively impact Apple’s performance.  Business also appears to be trending upwards in April. In our related survey on AT&T stores sales of the iPhone continue to look strong with positive trends in new iPhone account openings in addition to simple hardware unit sales.

For more information on AT&T and Apple trends, see The Channel Checkers data.

Douglas A. McIntyre