Apparently, Apple’s website saw quite a jump in visitors between March and April. comScore’s data shows that the number of American visitors at Apple.com went from 27.3 million to 38.8 million (a whopping 46% increase — update: make that a 42% increase), placing Apple at the 13th rank for most visited properties on the web (Yahoo grabbed #1, as usual).
What can explain this significant increase? Blogging Stocks thinks it’s the iPhone. Even with no news about the mesmerizing device, it appears that people just can’t wait for the phone. Apple TV probably generated a fair number of visits as well, as April marked its first full month out in the wild. Other top stories of April include the 8-core Mac Pro, the new Final Cut Studio suite, EMI’s DRM-free music announcement, Apple’s 100 millionth iPod sold, and the infamous Leopard delay.
All in all, it wasn’t a shabby month, but it’s hard to imagine those stories would generate more than 11 million additional visitors. Either Apple.com is getting a whole lot more popular in the U.S., or comScore’s data is seriously flawed.
obviously you forgot the most obvious answer which is Steve Jobs' open letter on Green Initiative.
Or, it could be the stellar performance of AAPL the past month.
Dear blah, I thought about that, but Steve's Greener Apple piece was published on May 2nd, so that wouldn't count towards the April traffic.
In retrospect, the increase might come from the fact March was a lackluster month. I looked around afterward a little, and the average traffic for Apple seems to hover around 30 million, so April was especially good in comparison to March.
The reason is simple: The iPOD halo effect is in full swing and more and more people are buying iMacs, iPODs and don't forget the much anticipated iPhone!
if the current ipod can still attracts the crowd, just imagine what will happen post-iphone production ...
it'll be phenomenal ... but it also give you the opportunity to make money - but apple's stock, what else ...
Actually, I think they can thank Microsoft. I can't be the only one who refuses to buy anything Vista related and is now looking at Mac laptops.
A good portion of that increase is probably direct user migration because of forced Vista on most new commercial laptops. I would know, I used to be a hardcore windows gamer until Vista, now I'm all mac.
Well, I believe you all missed it. Think about it, the delay of Leopard! Even the retail stores saw a spike in sales for April. Everyone that was holding out to get there new Mac with Leopard pre-installed said, "can't wait any longer!"