Apple Beats Competitors at Inventory Turn Over

Despite a weakening economy and a need to meet customer demand, Apple has been able to maintain a fast inventory turn over rate. The Mac and iPhone maker is sitting at five days worth of inventory on any given day, beating Dell's seven days worth of inventory, according to data from UBS.

Other PC makers are having even more trouble matching Apple's inventory efficiency. Lenovo, for example, is averaging 15 days of inventory, and HP is sitting at 32 days. Intel, however, is showing a much slower inventory turnover rate at 89 days, and D-Link is sitting on a staggering 131 days worth of inventory.

Apple's quick turnover rate may have been due in part to preparing for its just announced iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro updates. The company released new desktop computer models on March 3, and keeping inventory low helped assure that there would be fewer of the previous model machines sitting on store shelves.

While maintaining a higher inventory level can help a company cope with sudden increases in demand, it can also show a company's inability to adequately gauge market interest in their products. For now, it looks like Apple is managing inventory better than its competition.

[Thanks to setteB.it for the heads up.]