Driven by promotions & 16 new carriers, Apple seen selling 36.5M iPhones in June quarter
Wells Fargo Securities believes Apple may have just completed yet another record breaking quarter, driven by a forecasted shipment of 36.5 million iPhones for the three-month period ending in June.
Analyst Maynard Um projects that Apple may have earned $38.2 billion in revenue in the June quarter, an estimate higher than the $37.9 billion average expectation from Wall Street. In particular, he sees Apple setting a new June quarter record for iPhone shipments, easily topping last year's 31.2 million units.
Um noted that Apple added 16 new iPhone carriers since the end of April, bringing its worldwide total to 332 carrier partners. In addition, the iPhone also launched in four smaller countries -- Brunei, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, and Lebanon.
While these new countries and carriers are likely to have only added a small number of iPhone units to Apple's total, Um believes growth was also driven by Apple's promotional activity in the channel.
Beyond the iPhone, Um sees Apple having sold 12 million iPads, 3.9 million Macs, and 1.9 million iPods in the quarter. He's also predicted gross margins of 38.3 percent, higher than Apple's guidance of 37 to 38 percent, along with earnings per share of $1.27, higher than the Street's expectation of $1.22.
Despite his expectations of a record quarter, Um is still bearish on Apple's longer-term prospects than many of his colleagues. The analyst has maintained a "market perform" rating on AAPL stock, with a valuation range of $86 to $96 per share.
Part of his reason for that is a belief that Apple will ultimately have to choose between growth and margins. He said that the remaining opportunity in the smartphone market is smaller in size and better suited to low-end products, a space where Apple does not currently compete.
Apple will report the results of its third quarter of fiscal year 2014 on July 22, representing its first earnings call with new Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri at the helm. AppleInsider will have full, live coverage of the event, which starts at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern.
Analyst Maynard Um projects that Apple may have earned $38.2 billion in revenue in the June quarter, an estimate higher than the $37.9 billion average expectation from Wall Street. In particular, he sees Apple setting a new June quarter record for iPhone shipments, easily topping last year's 31.2 million units.
Um noted that Apple added 16 new iPhone carriers since the end of April, bringing its worldwide total to 332 carrier partners. In addition, the iPhone also launched in four smaller countries -- Brunei, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, and Lebanon.
While these new countries and carriers are likely to have only added a small number of iPhone units to Apple's total, Um believes growth was also driven by Apple's promotional activity in the channel.
Though his forecasts are above average, Wells Fargo's Maynard Um has maintained a "market perform" rating on AAPL stock.
Beyond the iPhone, Um sees Apple having sold 12 million iPads, 3.9 million Macs, and 1.9 million iPods in the quarter. He's also predicted gross margins of 38.3 percent, higher than Apple's guidance of 37 to 38 percent, along with earnings per share of $1.27, higher than the Street's expectation of $1.22.
Despite his expectations of a record quarter, Um is still bearish on Apple's longer-term prospects than many of his colleagues. The analyst has maintained a "market perform" rating on AAPL stock, with a valuation range of $86 to $96 per share.
Part of his reason for that is a belief that Apple will ultimately have to choose between growth and margins. He said that the remaining opportunity in the smartphone market is smaller in size and better suited to low-end products, a space where Apple does not currently compete.
Apple will report the results of its third quarter of fiscal year 2014 on July 22, representing its first earnings call with new Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri at the helm. AppleInsider will have full, live coverage of the event, which starts at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern.
Comments
I'm amazed sales are not going down as people wait for the iPhone 6. That phone is going to go ape s*** crazy.
So much about "high end market saturation" and other boll...s
But the best is even coming: product portfolio will be extended to larger screen sizes and later also to mediocre priced segment. I wouldn't want to be Apple competitor in next few years
I'll save you some time Maynard, they chose margin over sales several decades ago.
It's more than the 16 new carriers added in the last quarter. Apple added new carriers in the January-March quarter as well, and added both NTT DoCoMo and China Mobile since reporting 2013's Q3 numbers. When comparing year over year, Um should also be comparing the carrier numbers against last year, not against the start of this most recent quarter. Silly analysts. No wonder they're constantly wrong.
More relevant would be a link to a track record of Um's accuracy... which has historically been lousy. I think Phillip Elmer DeWitt keeps accurate records of such things.
AppleInsider clearly does not want to track the accuracy of analyst predictions. If they did, they'd have to note that 98% of these rumors are off the mark and soon they would have very little to publish. By pretending to be oblivious of the atrocious track record of analysts (or certain other media sources like Digitimes), AI can continue to generate page views by posting garbage not fit to print on toilet paper.
Note that AI is no different than other tech rumor sites. They all worship the Almighty Pageview. That is their priority; providing thoughtful and reasoned analysis is not.
As far as I can tell, DeWitt does not keep a long-term historical scorecard of analyst predictions over years. He only provides a ranking based on the most recent quarterly earnings result.
There is one service that does track the accuracy of analyst predictions -- Starmine -- but they no longer divulge their ratings for free. You must pay the big bucks to get the information. A few years ago, that was not the case, and one could easily see that oft-quoted analysts Munster, Wu, and Huberty were ranked very, very poorly by Starmine. Now, their abysmal track records are hidden behind a substantial paywall.
If AI were to start tracking analyst accuracy, they would fundamentally be changing their business model from a schlock rumor mill to a valuable analyst rating tool.
Uhh- the carriers and where it's being sold matters little. It's all going to boil down to- how fast can apple make them. They'll be sold out and in high demand all quarter regardless of how many carriers they have.
This is not true for the quarter that just ended.
It is true that the iPhone's availability is tight in the quarter that it is released, and the subsequent quarter, so much so that Apple staggers the worldwide shipment dates over months. By the third fiscal quarter, the supply-demand balance has equalized, partly due to lower demand (fewer net unit sales) and optimizations by Apple's manufacturing partners.
Here's a graph that clearly shows lower fiscal Q3 global iPhone unit sales (compared to 1st and 2nd quarters):
http://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-iphone-sales-since-3rd-quarter-2007/
Thus, the introduction of additional carriers in fiscal Q3 is significant, since Apple's supply chain does have capacity to increase production and increasing the number of carriers means increasing the points-of-sale.