“We think it’s going to be an iPad Christmas,” said Tim Cook on today’s call with analysts following Apple’s earnings announcement. In the long run, Apple needs it to be so; this quarter, the company sold fewer iPads than predicted (14.1 million versus 14.5 million), and overall, Apple is seeing its iPad sales go, according to Henry Blodget, “down the tubes.”
Cook probably isn’t exaggerating. There are two cycles that matter to Apple: One is that, like all consumer tech companies, holiday sales tend to be huge for Apple. The other is that whenever the company roles out new products, sales peak. The former trend is important, but the latter one—pent up consumer demand for Apple’s goods, unleashed all at once, tends to be really important.
Add to that the fact that Apple was only shipping its new iPhones for 10 days in the most recently reporter quarter, and it’s likely that the upcoming holiday quarter is going to be a monster one for Apple.