Analysts were a lot less bullish about unit sales three months ago.
In July I asked analysts how many iPhones they expected Apple to sell in the September quarter. I asked again this week and a got a bigger answer. 5.25% bigger.
- July estimate: 43 million
- Today’s estimate: 45.3 million
Here’s how that 2.3 million iPhone windfall was spread out among the brokerage firms for which I have before and after estimates:
Not seeing the interactive graphic? Try the website.
Below: The individual analysts’ unit sales estimates. We’ll find out who was closest to the mark when Apple reports its fiscal Q4 earnings. Tune in Tuesday Oct. 25 after the markets close.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story made a classic million-billion error. My first in months.
Hi Philip… 2.3 billion?
Thanks for catching that. Reposted, with correction.
🙁 … I was really looking forward to the market reaction come Monday morning.
No kidding, probably would of skyrocketed to 15x trailing earnings ;-/
Interesting considering the widely praised SAMSUNG Note 7 on the market – this is an interesting update. The real impact of SAMSUNG, prob won’t be until Jan-Mar 2017, given Apple fall supply constrained iPhone 7 plus. My order last week has an estimated delivery date of early December.
If the Chinese App Store boom continues implying high demand for Apple iPhones, then Apple will continue to be supply limited as Chinese New Year arrives.
Again masking any benefits of SAMSUNG diminished rep and older product line. This leads me to think Google PIXEL may be at a perfect storm of Apple being supply constrained and SAMSUNG much weaker. Google may actually have a successful hardware launch after so many past failures.
Good points. The PIXEL story is just starting. They launched only with Verizon, indicating they’re supply constrained – just my guess. Continuing that thread, PIXEL will struggle to supply the phones to fill the Samsung void. Other Android makers will jump in as well, especially overseas. PIXEL may take some of Apple’s business…. in the future. Let’s compare total PIXELs to total iPhones sold about one year from today.
There are some interesting issues here. PIxel is in many ways a “clonephone”, or iPhone lookalike. Ask yourself: Why didn’t Google make a clonephone long ago, when Apple first came out with the iPhone? Why did they leave it to all the others? Because Apple would have sued the pants off of them had they created a knockoff OS AND made money off of it. Only by making the OS “open source” was Google able to avoid a direct law suit from Apple.
A lot of time has gone by since then, and the new Android is a far cry from the original Android. But it’s arguable that, even though it’s many years later, Google is in the process of making hay off of that original – well, theft, since they’re now going to be actively profiting from it.
Of course, Apple doesn’t want to give Google any free press for their device, so I imagine they’re holding their fire until the last possible moment before lowering the boom – and taking all that profit away from Google.
Hi, George!
If you’re right, does Google know enough about supply chain management to produce phones to meet that demand? I suspect that’s a much harder problem than most at Google understand.
In addition to supply chain management there’s production capacity. This is the problem Microsoft has as well. They sold nearly $1 B worth of Surface tablets last quarter, but that’s only a tenth of what Apple sold in one of it’s weakest quarters. Even presuming the demand is there, how do you scale up production to match the level Apple’s already at?
The real question will be – what can Google, MS, Amazon, Samsung, or some dark horse bring to the game by way of a “special sauce” that can differentiate them from Apple? And can Apple replicate the recipe? If Apple can, then it’s game, set, and match to Apple. They’ve got all the momentum.
Figuratively speaking, the Note 7 disaster will add only a few drops to the cascading waterfall of iPhone 7 demand. The iPhone 7’s success or the success of any future iPhone handset series will be determined less by the products delivered by other handset makers and more by Apple’s ability to extend and expand the company’s base of device owners and participation in the company’s eco-system of devices, apps, content and services.
The fallout from the Note 7 disaster is much more apt to reshuffle demand within the Android sphere than it will deliver millions of new device customers to Apple. Outside of the iPhone, the demand for high-end smartphones is small and represents only a small fraction of Android-based smartphone sales.
In my view, the release of the Pixel is more an effort by Alphabet to better define its vision of the Android experience primarily for Google services purists than it is a significant competitor to Samsung or even Apple.
If Apple has a competitor it’s Alphabet not Samsung. It’s a competition to create the ideal digital lifestyle experience for users more than it is a competition for device unit sales. If there’s a lesson to be learned from the Note 7 disaster, the lesson is Android device makers need to focus more on quality and usability than be concerned with Apple’s release dates for new iPhone handsets.
Very encouraging. I’d love to hear Moskowitz explain his thinking.
The iPhone is Apple’s lion’s tail; they’ve grabbed it and they dare not let go. This particular lion has taken Apple farther and faster, IMHO, than even Steve Jobs expected. And I’m not convinced that this particular lion has yet to stop moving. It has literally pulled Apple into an international market on a scale few would have predicted before the advent of the iPhone.
Recall what I said earlier: “Enter the smartphone, which Apple, with it’s penchant for integrating hardware and software, completely reinvents. All of a sudden a lowly device which has taken the world by storm, the cell phone, becomes Apple’s entree into massively extending it’s reach.”
The cell phone reached every corner of the globe far faster than any technology before it – and right behind it came the smartphone, aka the “pocket computer”. The transformative nature of a functional computer in the pocket of literally billions cannot be overstated. It is on the order of the Gutenberg printing press. And Apple has lead, and continues to lead, the way.
Meanwhile, count on it that Apple is backfilling as fast as possible, pushing into every computerized piece of the world it can as fast as it can while still staying true to it’s mantra of customer, hence quality, first.
There has never been a company like Apple. That the present crop of investors largely fails to see that is a temporary manifestation of flawed reasoning. Eventually, the worm will turn.
“And I’m not convinced that this particular lion has yet to stop moving.”
Oops! Double negative! Should have said “And I’m convinced that this particular lion has yet to stop moving.”
Sorry about that….
Philip-
For clarity, I recommend you add the word ‘revenue’ to the paragraph above your second table. There are a lot of components of the apple model that are talked about. M
Below: The individual analysts’ [revenue] estimates. We’ll find out who was closest to the mark when Apple reports its fiscal Q4 earnings. Tune in Tuesday Oct. 25 after the markets close.
Those are iPhone unit sales estimates, not revenue. Reworded for clarity.
More than any other factor, reported September quarter iPhone unit sales will be determined by supply. It’s possible more iPhones were sold through to consumers in the quarter than will be reported as sold because the company may not have been able to match the drawn down of channel supply of iPhone 6 series handsets with shipments of new iPhone 7 handsets into the global channel.
In general, it appears Wall Street analysts have been at least modestly surprised by the level of consumer interest in Apple’s newest iPhones and the very heavy promotional activity in support of the iPhone 7 from all of the domestic carriers.
However, the high level of interest and consequential demand will be reflected more in December quarter results than the unit sales number for the September quarter that will be announced next week.
I totally agree with this, Robert. It’s why I’ve been saying Tuesday’s conference call is all about guidance. I may miss my bet, but I think there are going to be some shocked analysts following that guidance.
Of course, a fy Q4 number on the high side wouldn’t hurt either….
Yup, It’s all about guidance, which will up-end the doomsday no-growth story.
One of the differentiators / iingredients in Pixel’s ” magic sauce” might well be their Assistant’ apparent superiority over Siri
The problem with the Pixel is what you have to give up to get their “magic sauce”; your privacy.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/technology/pixel-launch-is-google-assistants-aiassaultprivacy_7576961.html
Hope Apple is able to leverage their new AI acquisitions !