third quarter

Two 'third quarter' stories August 2011 - November 2013

T-Mobile sells 550k iPhones in Q3, 10% of total smartphone sales

While T-Mobile didn’t disclose specific iPhone numbers in its Q3 earnings report this morning, BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk has followed up with numbers from the company’s conference call. According to T-Mobile, iPhone sales accounted for almost 550k units, or 10% of its total 5.6 million smartphone sales including pre-paid and MetroPCS branded devices. Piecyk notes that number is around 15% of the carrier’s post-paid smartphone sales under its own brand, which is down from approximately 950k last quarter. T-Mobile confirmed the numbers in a statement to AllThingsD:

Sales of iPhones represented about 15 percent of T-Mobile-brand smartphone sales, CMO Mike Sievert said. T-Mobile sold about 3.6 million smartphones under its own brand, meaning it sold about 540,000 iPhones in the quarter.

T-Mobile today reported that it sold a record 5.6 million smartphones during the quarter, which includes sales to prepaid customers, accounting for around 88% of total phone units sold. The carrier didn’t have much time to sell the new iPhone 5s and 5c in its third quarter as the devices launched late in September, but the company did make a point of noting that it launched the new iPhones at “very attractive introductory prices of $99 down and $0 down” in its earnings release today. Piecyk notes how that compares to the other guys in Q3:

[tweet https://twitter.com/WaltBTIG/status/397743765474930688]
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Apple squeezes suppliers, cuts costs by nearly 50 percent

A report from Digitimes claims that, although touch panel orders from the iPhone and iPad 2 have increased significantly for the third quarter, Apple is allegedly placing orders at nearly half the cost of previous shipments. This leads us to believe they are either trying to reduce BOM (and increase margins) at the expense of suppliers, or they’re prepping for the usual price cuts in the wake of new product releases (iPhone 5, we’re looking at you).

The report notes:

Wintek has received touch sensor orders from Apple at prices nearly 50% lower than the ones previously offered by the client. The impact of Wintek’s low-margins is expected to ripple out to other downstream players

The move is expected to result in lower than usual profit-margins for the supplier and also affect other suppliers down the chain. The report is also quick to point out that “Wintek has previously rejected low-margin orders from Apple”. We’ll keep you posted as more becomes available.