Supply chain expects Apple to ship more than 50M iPhones in current March quarter
In the follow-up to Apple's blockbuster December quarter, the company could exceed sales of 50 million iPhones in the current March frame, companies in the Apple supply chain reportedly believe.
Citing sources within Taiwan's handset supply chain, DigiTimes reported on Tuesday that component makers expect Apple's iPhone will top the 50-million-sale mark for the first time ever outside of the holiday shopping season. Reaching 50 million units in the three-month period would represent an increase of 14.4 percent from the 43.7 million iPhones the company shipped in the March quarter of 2014.
Apple's second quarter of fiscal 2015 runs through the end of March, and will represent the second full quarter of sales of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Demand during the March quarter is expected to be bolstered by Greater China, where the upcoming Lunar New Year could bolster sales of the iPhone. Sources in the supply chain reportedly believe that Apple's Asia-Pacific sales will continue to rise and take up an increasing part of the company's bottom line.
Alleged supply chain expectations for the iPhone are about in line with Wall Street projections, as analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray says that the market generally expects about 51 million iPhone units to be sold in the March period.
Apple has exceeded the 50-million threshold only twice before: Just recently in the holiday 2014 quarter, when it sold a record shattering 74.5 million units, and in the holiday 2013 quarter when it achieved sales of 51 million iPhones.
Apple revealed last week that it shipped its one-billionth iOS device last quarter, with the iPhone representing the lion's share of device sales. Chief Executive Tim Cook also signaled to investors that the strong momentum for the iPhone lineup will continue, as only 14 percent of users had upgraded from previous-generation handsets.
Citing sources within Taiwan's handset supply chain, DigiTimes reported on Tuesday that component makers expect Apple's iPhone will top the 50-million-sale mark for the first time ever outside of the holiday shopping season. Reaching 50 million units in the three-month period would represent an increase of 14.4 percent from the 43.7 million iPhones the company shipped in the March quarter of 2014.
To date, Apple has exceeded sales of 50 million iPhones in a single quarter twice, and both of those were holiday quarters.
Apple's second quarter of fiscal 2015 runs through the end of March, and will represent the second full quarter of sales of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Demand during the March quarter is expected to be bolstered by Greater China, where the upcoming Lunar New Year could bolster sales of the iPhone. Sources in the supply chain reportedly believe that Apple's Asia-Pacific sales will continue to rise and take up an increasing part of the company's bottom line.
Alleged supply chain expectations for the iPhone are about in line with Wall Street projections, as analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray says that the market generally expects about 51 million iPhone units to be sold in the March period.
Apple has exceeded the 50-million threshold only twice before: Just recently in the holiday 2014 quarter, when it sold a record shattering 74.5 million units, and in the holiday 2013 quarter when it achieved sales of 51 million iPhones.
Apple revealed last week that it shipped its one-billionth iOS device last quarter, with the iPhone representing the lion's share of device sales. Chief Executive Tim Cook also signaled to investors that the strong momentum for the iPhone lineup will continue, as only 14 percent of users had upgraded from previous-generation handsets.
Comments
TSMC's gotta be loving all the A8 business.
What'll be hard is switching from iP6 to iP6S production, they'll have to either use entirely separate lines or just endure a supply chain shortage for a while.
I expect Apple to continue to fill this Wikipedia page of quarterly earnings exceeding $10 billion for some time to come.
edit: Even without ?Watch I'd think Apple is on track to get over $10 billion in profit every quarter per year.
(Chart data courtesy of [@]NasserAE[/@] — http://bit.ly/1F2bsyj)
Based on what I know of Apple and Cook's ability to plan ahead, and his vague comment about certain markets preferring the larger display size, I would think they worked this out months ago. If the difference is USA prefers iPhone 6 for Christmas and China prefers iPhone 6 Plus for Chinese New Year, then that sounds like it could be serendipitous to Apple longterm.
If accurate, that's a lot of iPhones.
Clearly Cook is still just getting by on what Jobs set up. Remember, it's a Haunted Empire.
Clearly Cook is still just getting by on what Jobs set up. Remember, it's a Haunted Empire.
Is there a «cheap fiction» section at the bookstore? You know where we can get 2 books for $1.
Buy Lance Armstrong's "It's not about the bike" and Yukari Iwatani Kane's "The haunted empire" for $0.99.
What's absolutely insane is that I came across an article from a few yrs ago (I think 2010) about Apple's "record-crushing" quarter, in which they sold 7.5M iPhones. Last quarter, they sold more than 10X that #, and that was supply constrained. Just mind-boggling and ludicrous. The way Cook and team have expanded Apple's manufacturing abilities and sales in just a few short years is pretty fucking impressive. When Jobs passed, the situation today would have been beyond my wildest expectations for the prospects of the company.
That's low ball. I'm expecting 55 million
Yup...and the blowout quarter again. I can see the Chinese will kill it with Valentine and Lunar New Year shopping coming in the next 2 weeks. Then Apple Watch expectations build up and another great quarter with 15 million Apple Watches sold...yeah, that $7.5 billions there. This is the reason why I'm holding on to my AAPL instead of diversify them.
I think that Tim's comments are being misunderstood. It sounded like he was saying that only 14% of current iPhone owners upgraded during the quarter, not that only 14% of the 74.5 million IPhones sold were upgraders. I have to believe that a much larger percentage of purchases were upgrades, but Tim's point is that there's still a huge market of 80%-plus current iPhone owners who could still upgrade to a 6 or 6 Plus.
That sounds more like it, news articles should use Tim's actual wording. The transcript is here:
http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/01/tim-cook-transcript-what-apples-ceo-said-to-analysts/
"only a small fraction of the installed base has upgraded, so there’s a lot more people within the installed base, but I would also point out that we had the highest number of customers new to iPhone last quarter than in any prior launch. And also that the current iPhone lineup experienced the highest Android switcher rate in any of the last three launches in any of the three previous years.
It’s a small fraction, it’s a number that’s barely in the teens, and so when I look at that I say that there’s an enormous amount left. And given that there are a fair amount of Android units out there, there’s also an enormous amount of Android customers that could switch. And I’d also remind you that there’s a lot of people that have not yet bought a smartphone."
The following site estimated the install base from the most recent models to be 375m units:
http://fortune.com/2015/01/28/apples-iphone-66-blowout-what-the-analysts-are-saying/
"If we assume that the last 10 quarters of iPhones sold through the September quarter equates to the iPhone installed base, this would suggest a 375 million user base. Management commented that only a small “teens %” had upgraded to the iPhone 6 family. If we apply 12%, this would suggest about 45 million of users had upgraded, whereas we believe that iPhone 6 sales since inception are closer to 75-80 million units. Hence, we if applied a 12% ratio to an assumed figure of 75 million iPhone 6 sales since inception, this would suggest a user base of closer to 625 million."
45m out of 75m upgrades = 60% would be more consistent with older models around 55-75%.