Apple's Black Friday: online sales way up, retail Mac sales down

We gave you a glimpse of Apple’s Black Friday deals a bit early this year, and now, Piper Jaffray Apple-lover analyst Gene Munster has chimed in with some numbers to let us know exactly how the iVendor did. The world’s favorite iPod maker saw online sales increase by a staggering 39% this Black Friday — compare with this years average of 11% growth in online sales — which was driven by a mere 2% boost in web traffic. That is just about where the good news ends however, as G-Mizzle states that Apple Stores were selling, “8.3 Macs per hour, down from 13 Macs per hour last year” on Black Friday. Now, Munster uses an extremely scientific formula, one the consists of visiting three Apple Stores and counting how many Mac’s they are selling per hour, and while this formula is in all likelihood potentially flawed, it does show a decline in year-over-year sales as the economy continues to slump — note that the increase in Apple Store locations was not taken into account by this “formula.” Even with this decree Munster still thinks Apple will hit its Wall Street predicted December number. Thanks Gene, all of your insights are, as always, extremely helpful.

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