Fortune reporter Philip Elmer-DeWitt compiles forecasts on Apple from sell-side and independent analysts. For the March quarter the 48 analysts (30 Wall Street professionals and 18 Independents) have a range of 32.5 million to 42.5 million with an average of 36.94 million and a median of 37 million (which is also my projection).
CJ Takeaway: The 10 million iPhone range is half of December quarter's (43 million to 63 million) which I believe is largely driven by Apple's new guidance philosophy of giving a range for revenue vs. a single point. This has obtained one of the company's objectives of not having expectations get so high that they could not be achieved let alone exceeded.
Source: Fortune magazine Philip Elmer-DeWitt
As always there are a number of factors effecting iPhone sales.
- The iPhone 5 launched in September 2012 vs. the 4S in October 2011 so there was probably less pent up demand for the 5 in the March 2013 quarter.
- China Telecom and China Unicom had the iPhone 5 available in December 2012 so they were able to sell between 3 to 5 million in the December quarter vs. the 4S wasn’t available until the March 2012 quarter (China Unicom in January and China Telecom in March). This could lead to lower sales in China vs. a year ago or at least mute the sales growth.
- Samsung announced the Galaxy S4 phone which impacted iPhone sales.
- RIM/BlackBerry announced its new phones which could have impacted iPhone sales (but not as much as Samsung probably did).
- There has been a decent amount of speculation regarding an iPhone 5S (same form factor as the 5 but with a bump up of internal components), a low cost iPhone and a large screen iPhone. These could have a dampening effect on iPhone sales.
I am at 37 million iPhones, which would be a 6% growth rate from the prior years 35.1 million. My estimate matches the median, is towards the high-end of the Street analysts and the low-end of the independents. With an average selling price (ASP) of $625 (vs. $642 in the December quarter) the iPhone represents 54% of my total revenue projection of $42.5 billion (guidance is a range of $41 billion to $43 billion and the Street's $42.7 billion).
Source: Fortune magazine Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Disclaimer: My family and I own Apple shares
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