Skip to main content

KGI: Apple to sell over 71M iPhones in holiday quarter, followed by sub-50M to start 2015

KGI-iphone-2014

KGI Research’s Ming-Chi Kuo, one of the few analyst/firms with a respectable record on Apple forecasts, updated its iPhone sales expectation numbers this weekend for the holiday quarter and Q1 of 2015.

Strong iPhone shipments in 4Q14. We forecast overall iPhone shipments will surge 82% QoQ to 71.5mn units in 4Q14, given robust demand for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The iPhone 6 Plus supply shortage implies not only robust demand, but also confirms our concerns regarding constraints within the supply chain. We believe 4Q14 iPhone shipments will be stronger if supply chain constraints are eased.

Kuo notes that the iPhone 5c and 4s which are still sold in emerging markets [like Virgin Mobile in the US?!] will be discontinued in 2015 after promotions that ironically will improve low end sales numbers in Q1 2015. Subsequently, average price per device sold will also drop significantly for Apple in Quarter 1…

The removal of the iPhone 4s and 5c will also make TouchID and features like Apple Pay ubiquitous across Apple’s phone lineup.

As for the iPhone 6/6 Plus mix, KGI expects it to settle at a 2:1 ratio favoring the iPhone 6 once supply constraints ease up. That is close to what we’ve seen from analysts and our own site.

[tweet https://twitter.com/llsethj/status/535805057137410051]

KGI forecasted a similar holiday spike/2015 fall for iPads last month.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. Taste_of_Apple - 9 years ago

    Pretty solid numbers if they pan out.

  2. iluvappleblog - 9 years ago

    Kuo was the only person to have correctly predicted the iPhone 6s screen resolutions back in April especially the FHD for the 5.5 version. But the same cannot be said about other predictions. I don’t think there will be such a high slip up in the 1Q15 using history as a reference.

  3. mobileseeks - 9 years ago

    QoQ numbers are basically useless. YoY is what is meaningful. I know I can dig up the numbers for last year but seems like that is critical piece of data to gain an understanding of how fast Apple’s iPhone business is growing. If you look at the 1Q15 QoQ delta, you’d think Apple was going to go out of business, when in fact it is just the seasonality.

    • Kawaii Gardiner - 9 years ago

      100% agree – QoQ is rather meaningless but alas we have the same suspects trumpet it as thought it was some sort of meaningful statistic. What I think will be interesting is seeing whether the iPhone 6 Plus eats into their iPad mini sales and whether the iPad mini still has a place now that there is a phablet on offer to consumers.

  4. ssanook - 9 years ago

    That would be 51.03M in Q1 of 14

  5. ssanook - 9 years ago

    Im very curious to see what the Mac line up will do this quarter, I thought the Q4 number was one of the better surprises in the announcement. Either way it’s going to be one hell of a quarter, quite possibly the highest quarterly profit ever posted by any company in history (I think)

Author

Avatar for Seth Weintraub Seth Weintraub

Publisher and Editorial Director of the 9to5/Electrek sites.


Seth Weintraub's favorite gear