Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu said in a note to clients — as reported by “AppleInsider” (http://www.appleinsider.com) — that though the Apple TV is starting to take off — Apple says sales will top one million this week — sales of the $99 set-top box just aren’t enough to have a major effect on Apple’s bottom line.
He says the million unit sales figure is “positive, but fairly immaterial.” If the device continues to sell a million units per quarter, it would amount to US$400 million in annual revenue — just a drop in the bucket for a company expected to earn $88 billion in revenue in its fiscal year 2011, Wu says.
Despite this, the analyst thinks the Apple TV is now positioned to become a “more material contributor and game changer in the TV space.” On the other hand, he believes a major catalyst for the set-top box would be the addition of an App Store, allowing users to download new applications — especially games — for the Apple TV.