Apple has sold 170M iPads to date, implying sales near 15M in Sept. quarter

Posted:
in AAPL Investors edited January 2014
Though many customers were waiting for Tuesday's announcement of new iPads, Apple still managed to ship near 15 million units in the September quarter, new data provided by the company implies.

iPad mini


At Tuesday's presentation, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook revealed that Apple had sold its 170 millionth iPad earlier this month. Wall Street analysts quickly pounced on that figure, with many interpreting it to mean that Apple shipped just shy of 15 million units in the just-concluded September quarter.

If accurate, that would be slightly higher than the 14 million iPads Apple sold in the year-ago quarter.

Maynard Um of Wells Fargo Securities interpreted Apple's announcement to suggest that the company shipped 14.9 million iPads in the September quarter. That would be slightly higher than his projection of 14.6 million for the three-month span.

And Timothy Acuri of Cowen and Company said in a note to investors Wednesday that Apple's commentary implies to him that the company shipped about 15 million iPad units in the September quarter. That would be about in-line with his forecast of 14.9 million units.

Others had a slightly lower take, with Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray saying Apple's announcement implied around 14 million iPads were shipped during the quarter, while Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital Markets now expects "modest downside" to his expectation of 14.8 million units.

Regardless, the number of most interest for analysts in the September quarter will be how many iPhones Apple shipped. The new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c launched just over a week after the quarter ended, and reached a record 9 million units in their first three days of availability.

Apple didn't offer any further details on iPhone figures during Tuesday's press conference, but the company will detail total iPhone sales for the quarter when its earnings are published next Monday, Oct. 28, after markets close.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member

    That's a good quarter for iPad which were due for an update. I think this coming quarter will be pretty decent.

  • Reply 2 of 17
    Heck of a quarter, considering iPad has not been updated since April of 2012, unless you count the minor update to iPad 4 last September .....
  • Reply 3 of 17
    iqatedoiqatedo Posts: 1,822member

    I didn't contribute to that number, my first generation iPad is still in use daily. However, I do intend to contribute to next quarter's numbers and have also had family and acquaintances asking me when the new iPads would be released. Big period coming up for the iPad I believe.

  • Reply 4 of 17
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    sog35 wrote: »
    Mr Cook was using round numbers.

    Could be anywhere between 168M and 173M

    Generally, when they mention a number, it's the minimum. They've done this pretty consistently over the years. But it's the actual date that Apple is looking to that matters. Was this by the first day in October, right after the end of the quarter, or a week into the new quarter? In other words, is the number quoted on some random day in which it occurred, or the total up to the end of the last quarter?

    I've been seeing estimates of just 11 million iPads sold this last quarter. I wasn't too shocked at those numbers either, as it's not untypical of what happens to Apple's sales the quarter before a major release of new product. So if they sold the same number as the quarter before, that's really a major victory.
  • Reply 5 of 17

    All these numbers don't mean anything, when you know that Apple's market share dropped from 62% to 32%.

    With Others taking the lion share of 42%. Is that Others Inc. or a chinese manufacturer?

    /s

     

    With Acer coming in at 5th position with 3%, how many Others do you have to lump together to hit 42%?

    Can IDC name all the companies that reside under Others?

  • Reply 6 of 17
    jonoromjonorom Posts: 293member
    melgross wrote: »
    Generally, when they mention a number, it's the minimum. They've done this pretty consistently over the years. But it's the actual date that Apple is looking to that matters. Was this by the first day in October, right after the end of the quarter, or a week into the new quarter?

    Tim has to be very careful about releasing numbers like this shortly before the quarterly earnings are announced. I expect that the 170M number is exactly what Wall Street expects it to mean: sold through October 1.
  • Reply 7 of 17

    Can't resist pointing out that I brought this up first. :)

  • Reply 8 of 17
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post





    Generally, when they mention a number, it's the minimum. They've done this pretty consistently over the years. But it's the actual date that Apple is looking to that matters. Was this by the first day in October, right after the end of the quarter, or a week into the new quarter? In other words, is the number quoted on some random day in which it occurred, or the total up to the end of the last quarter?

    Agree. With 3 weeks gone in Oct, the difference between hitting 170M on Oct 1 and Oct 19 is huge.

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post



    I've been seeing estimates of just 11 million iPads sold this last quarter. I wasn't too shocked at those numbers either, as it's not untypical of what happens to Apple's sales the quarter before a major release of new product. So if they sold the same number as the quarter before, that's really a major victory.


     

    Is it a major victory? I see two perspectives.

     

    On one hand, a year ago, the most recent iPad release was at the beginning of the year. So consumers were not expecting an iPad4 (and even iPad Mini was just a rumor). This year, everyone has been expecting a refresh. So yes, from this perspective, it is a sweet victory to sell as many as YoY.

     

    On the other hand, there are two products this year vs. one last year. Yet the sum of iPad and iPad Mini does not seem to add significantly to the totals. In fact, it appears that iPad Mini was released just in time to minimize market share erosion. So no, from this second perspective, the victory is not major.

     

    Furthermore, I suspect he really meant 170M as in units sold. But a week from now, he'll be report numbers that will include channel volume (much as I hate to invoke the shipped v. sold discussion). So we might be looking at something above 15M, if the 170M number was achieved in the first week of October. If so, then I'd agree with this being a "major victory".

     

    All to say, I am torn.

  • Reply 9 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by JONOROM View Post





    Tim has to be very careful about releasing numbers like this shortly before the quarterly earnings are announced. I expect that the 170M number is exactly what Wall Street expects it to mean: sold through October 1.

    I think that's why he said "earlier this month".

  • Reply 10 of 17
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    iqatedo wrote: »
    I didn't contribute to that number, my first generation iPad is still in use daily.
    Boy are you in for a surprise!! IPAD one was in my mind a proof of concept, the follow on models have been amazing due to how much better they perform. You will wonder why you waited so long.
    However, I do intend to contribute to next quarter's numbers and have also had family and acquaintances asking me when the new iPads would be released. Big period coming up for the iPad I believe.

    I see this happening too. I currently running an iPad 3 and iOS 7 is very nice on this machine, still it is hard to deny my lust for a faster iPad. I'm only disappointed by the amount of flash the new devices contain, I was really hoping for a bump at each price point. The only question really is can I swing one this quarter.
  • Reply 11 of 17
    ipilyaipilya Posts: 195member
    How do you delete these bloody posts? argh!
  • Reply 12 of 17
    ipilyaipilya Posts: 195member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by copeland View Post

     

    All these numbers don't mean anything, when you know that Apple's market share dropped from 62% to 32%.


     

    You have it all wrong, as market share does not matter... its (volume of sales x profit per unit average of subsequent revenue per unit) that matters. For this, Apple is winning hands down.



    Okay... I am not an economist... but its common sense to be honest.

  • Reply 13 of 17
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    copeland wrote: »
    All these numbers don't mean anything, when you know that Apple's market share dropped from 62% to 32%.
    With Others taking the lion share of 42%. Is that Others Inc. or a chinese manufacturer?
    /s

    With Acer coming in at 5th position with 3%, how many Others do you have to lump together to hit 42%?
    Can IDC name all the companies that reside under Others?

    I've always been skeptical of those marketshare numbers. They are meaningless. The only company that gives actual sales to end user numbers other than Apple is Motorola. All the others either give shipped, sold to the channel, or, in the case of Samsung and Microsoft, no numbers at all.

    It's being assumed that a very large chunk of those Android tablet sales are under $100 models made by local Chinese makes to be sold in China and some other very low end markets in Asia and possibly, Africa.

    The question is how well these things hew to the Google Android standard in regarding being able to download, and run, Android apps.

    It's like comparing smartphone sales to featurephone and dumb cellphone sales. They really aren't the same thing, even though they theoretically are aimed at the same buying public.

    I question the numbers anyway. I remember that back at the end of 2010, IDC said that Apple's tablet marketshare had fallen to 83%. That was because Samsung said they shipped 1,5 million 7" tablets to the US, which was the only tablet market that mattered at that time.

    But at the beginning of 2011, Lenovo stated that Samsung had only sold 20,000 of those tablets. Despite being questioned about that, Samsung never replied to that accusation. But, during their analyst conference call at the end of the first calendar year quarter in 2011, they stated that they would no longer supply shipment numbers for their tablets and smartphones.

    That, I thought, was a pretty telling bit of information. Basically, they were admitting that their shipment numbers were far in excess of what was sold. In fact, when questioned about tablet sales late in 2011, a Samsung official admitted that their tablet sales were, and I quote; "very poor".

    This has carried over to the present. When, in early 2013, as part of discovery in the trial between them and Apple, it was shown that with the smartphones in dispute, Samsung sold just 30-50% of the estimated sales IDC, and others estimated. With their tablets, the situation is far worse. Out of the million tablets supposedly shipped, only 38 thousand where actually sold.

    Since Samsung is assumed to be the biggest vendors of Android tablets, how many can the others be selling?

    And then there are the usage stats. It's hard to believe that Apple's tablets are used ten times as much as an Android tablet. Two times as much, even five times as much, but ten times? I suspect that those numbers are where they are because there aren't nearly as many Android tablets sold as is assumed.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    OHH!! Apple Iphone6 to feature wireless charging check this image http://imgdino.com/viewer.php?file=55435655014539763564.jpg
  • Reply 15 of 17
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Agree. With 3 weeks gone in Oct, the difference between hitting 170M on Oct 1 and Oct 19 is huge.

    Is it a major victory? I see two perspectives.

    On one hand, a year ago, the most recent iPad release was at the beginning of the year. So consumers were not expecting an iPad4 (and even iPad Mini was just a rumor). This year, everyone has been expecting a refresh. So yes, from this perspective, it is a sweet victory to sell as many as YoY.

    On the other hand, there are two products this year vs. one last year. Yet the sum of iPad and iPad Mini does not seem to add significantly to the totals. In fact, it appears that iPad Mini was released just in time to minimize market share erosion. So no, from this second perspective, the victory is not major.

    Furthermore, I suspect he really meant 170M as in units sold. But a week from now, he'll be report numbers that will include channel volume (much as I hate to invoke the shipped v. sold discussion). So we might be looking at something above 15M, if the 170M number was achieved in the first week of October. If so, then I'd agree with this being a "major victory".

    All to say, I am torn.

    Unlike other companies, Apple makes it very clear as to what was sold to the end user; sell through, and what is in the channel, by giving us the number of days or weeks of supply there. Both numbers together would be equivalent to the shipped numbers others give. But Apple sells every device in the channel, which others may not do. There are ways to hide the lack of sales for an entire year, that most people aren't aware of.

    Unfortunately, when Apple's numbers are mentioned by others, inventory in the channel is NEVER taken into account. It could be anywhere from 5-15% extra to Apple's sales.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post





    Unlike other companies, Apple makes it very clear as to what was sold to the end user; sell through, and what is in the channel, by giving us the number of days or weeks of supply there. Both numbers together would be equivalent to the shipped numbers others give. But Apple sells every device in the channel, which others may not do. There are ways to hide the lack of sales for an entire year, that most people aren't aware of.



    Unfortunately, when Apple's numbers are mentioned by others, inventory in the channel is NEVER taken into account. It could be anywhere from 5-15% extra to Apple's sales.

    I'm not suggesting Apple is hiding numbers. Not at all. I'm merely saying that, as analysts try to estimate what iPad shipment volume will be reported by Apple, they may be erring by using the 170M as a basis.

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