Morgan Stanley is estimating that iPhone sales for Q3 (Apple’s fiscal Q4) will hit 34.5M, 28 percent higher than the 26.9M sold in the same quarter last year, reports Fortune.
Apple had only just begun taking iPhone 5C pre-orders Sunday when Morgan Stanley’s AlphaWise Smartphone Tracker closed the books on Q3 2013, but the survey had already registered a bump in buyer interest in the company’s line of smartphones … Expand Expanding Close
If the iPhone 5C is launched in China at $400, and Apple’s partnership with China Mobile for a TDD-LTE version of the handset proceeds as expected, Apple’s market share in China could jump by a massive 19.3 percent – enough to make Apple the number one seller.
The prediction, reported in Fortune, was made by Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty on the back of an AlphaWise survey of 2,000 mobile phone owners in China. Full details below … Expand Expanding Close
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty issued a note to clients today claiming she is even more confident Apple will introduce a low-cost iPhone following a meeting with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve heard an analyst discuss the much-rumored low-cost iPhone. Since its release, the success of the lower-priced iPad mini has been the rationale behind many analysts prediction of a less expensive iPhone expected to launch sometime later this year. We’re not so sure Oppenheimer let anything slip that we wouldn’t have otherwise heard at the most recent earnings call, but Huberty wrote she is even more confident that the device is in the works following the meeting with the Apple executive (via BusinessInsider). Her reasoning: success of the iPad mini in emerging markets, desire among Chinese consumers to purchase a new, low-cost device, and the continued success of iPhone 4 during last quarter:
We also see several signs that a lower priced iPhone makes sense: 1) iPad Mini is expanding Apple’s customer base with 50% of purchases in China/Brazil representing new customers to the ecosystem. 2) Chinese consumers show a desire to purchase the latest version of iPhone (instead of discounted older generations). 3) iPhone 4 demand surprised to the upside in the December quarter. Even at a low 40% gross margin and 1/3 cannibalization rate, we see an “iPhone Mini” as incremental to revenue and gross profit dollars.
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty wrote in a note to clients issued yesterday (viaFortune) that U.S. consumers are expect to buy more iPhones in the first calendar quarter of 2012 than even the holiday quarter this year. This is noteworthy as the holiday quarter has traditionally been Apple’s strongest three-month sales period.
Not even the two recent Samsung television commercials (here and here) that poke fun of line waiters seem to be slowing the iPhone momentum (unless you believe a YouGov survey, chart included below the fold). Huberty is now projecting CQ4 iPhone sales anywhere from 31 to 36 million iPhones versus the previous model calling for 30 million units (Wall Street: 28 million). For the first quarter of the next year, Huberty is projecting an astounding 41 million units based on last week’s comments from AT&T and an Alphawise survey conducted for Morgan Stanley the week after Thanksgiving.
That’s a 46 percent increase over her previous 28 million estimate (Wall Street: 26 million). In all, Huberty wrote, Apple should sell 190 million iPhones during the calendar year 2012. As for iPad…
