Among Steve Jobs's many other stunning announcements at yesterday, he gave us the numbers that many of us have been waiting to hear. Mr. Jobs said that over 800,000 iMacs have been sold during its first 139 days on the market. Mr. Jobs went on to say break that down into some more recognizable numbers.
“During iMac’s first 139 days, an iMac was sold every 15 seconds of every minute of every hour of every day of every week.”
A stunning figure to be sure. The sales trend is likely to continue, though perhaps at a slightly slower pace, not that Apple has given the iMac a speed boost as well as adding 5 new colors to choose from.
Apple also announced that an independent survey showed that the strong trend of new buyers to the platform that started at the iMac launch continued throughout the buying season. According to Apple:
"An iMac buyer survey conducted by the independent firm Audits & Surveys Worldwide in December 1998 revealed that the mix of first-time buyers and Wintel converts remains high. For iMacs purchased from October through early December 1998, approximately 32 percent were purchased by first-time computer owners, and another 13 percent were purchased by Wintel converts—totaling almost 45 percent of iMac buyers who are new to the Macintosh platform. The remaining 55 percent are Macintosh owners who are either adding new systems or replacing old ones. These results are similar to the initial iMac buyer survey conducted in September 1998, which found that approximately 29 percent of iMac buyers were first-time computer owners and just over 12 percent were Wintel converts."
Great numbers indeed!
The Mac Observer Spin: The Mac Observer went on record repeatedly as predicting that Apple would sell 1.2 million iMacs before the end of 1998. While this was obviously not the case (but we do like to own up to our predictions), 800,000 is still a stunning figure that makes the iMac the number one selling computer for Apple as well as the entire PC industry of all time!
Adding some 360,000 new users to the platform will hopefully tickle the fancy of even more software developers as well. Growing the platform is one of Apple's next highest priorities now that the company has become more stable. Yesterday's announcements go far towards making that a reality.
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