The Sellers Research Group (that's me) predicted sales figures for Apple's fiscal 2011 first quarter. Those results were announced yesterday. So how'd I do?

I forecast that, when it comes to Macs, Apple sold 4.3 million Macs over the holiday period (the quarter ending in December). I was off a bit; the company sold 4.13 million Macs -- still a record quarter.

I said Apple would sell 14.2 million iPhones. The company actually sold 16.42 million, beating my estimates handily (and setting a new record).

As for iPads, I predicted Apple would ship 6.2 million tablets. The actual number was 7.33 million iPads, so, again, my estimates were low. And, again, this was a new record.

As for the iPod, I predicted Apple sold 18.5 million units over the holiday period. The actual figure? 19.45 million. That's not a record as this is a 7% unit decline from the year-ago quarter. However, considering the iPod now faces competition from the iPhone and iPad, that number's not bad. Not bad at all.

When it comes to the Apple TV, if Apple announces a sales figure, I said it would be 1.2 million. However, Apple didn't give any sales figures, so who knows how close (or not) I was on this one?


-- Dennis Sellers
dsellers@applecentral.com