Apple Europe News Briefs - - Apple's Financials Dissected, New Student Deal For The UK

by , 12:00 PM EDT, October 18th, 2002

SVM Mac has published an interesting look at Apple's financial results for this year, offering a nice look into the way Europe is seeing Apple's performance. The article is very detailed and shows that Apple is going through important changes. First remarkable fact for 2002: Apple managed to book a bigger profit than last year, all of this while the economy is in a recession. In total, Apple booked a profit of 66 million dollars. That's 7% more than last year. This result is all the more remarkable if we take into account that Apple is migrating its user base to Mac OS X, suffering from the megahertz gap with Wintel systems and still changing its sales model in the US (Apple Stores) and Europe (new deals).

Hardware sales remain at roughly the same level as last year, with decreasing professional sales compensated by the success of the iPod. 140,000 iPods have been sold, and it is expected that the Windows version will outsell the "native" Macintosh-compatible iPods by the end of the next fiscal quarter. SVM also mentions the success of the eMac. The CRT-based G4 appears to have become the real replacement for the "classic" iMac, making up 43% of total hardware sales. The LCD iMac, in the meantime, appears to have found a niche as the mid-range, design-conscious choice, succeeding where the Cube failed. Finally, Apple's "Switch" campaign appears to be working. No less than 40% of all buyers that visit Apple Stores didn't use a Mac before.

Hint to Apple: maybe stepping up publicity in Europe might help to revive flagging sales over here?

Apple UK launches iStudent

Apple UK has set up a lease & rental scheme for the education sector. It is dubbed "iStudent," and apart from showing us there is no relief from "iNames" yet, it gives students at certain educational institutions the opportunity to rent an iBook or PowerBook for three years. After that time, students can keep their machines after paying a £50 fee.

iStudent is a partnership between Apple Education, Apple Financial Services and several educational institutions. Each contract comes with insurance and a three-year AppleCare warranty, with WLAN access an optional extra. Depending on the conditions a student's school or university has obtained from Apple, renting an iBook can cost as little as £8 a week. Students that want to benefit from iStudent should contact the IT department of their school or college.

You can find more information on iStudent on Apple's UK Web-site.

TMO offers a regular round-up of Apple-related news from Europe, courtesy of the editor of our European Desk, Tom Terryn.