Morgan Stanley's iPhone Tracker shows Apple selling 56.5 million units this quarter
This time last year, Apple was about to wrap up a quarter that saw it sell 61.2 million units of the Apple iPhone. That is the magic number of handset sales that Apple has to surpass this quarter to prevent it from reporting lower year-over-year quarterly iPhone sales for the first time in history. Many figured it would have happened last quarter, but Apple managed to sell a record 74.8 million iPhones during its fiscal first quarter. That topped the previous year's Q1 sales figure of 74.5 million iPhones.
According to Morgan Stanley's Apple analyst Katy Huberty, "Our Asia tech team led by Jasmine Lu believes supply chain inventory digestion has come to an end." Morgan Stanley's AlphaWise iPhone Tracker is calling for 56.5 million units to be sold during the current quarter. The brokerage firm itself sees Apple selling 49 million iPhones from January through March, while Apple expects to sell 52 million.
A wild card here is the 4-inch Apple iPhone SE. Huberty says that the phone could ship in time to have some units count during the current quarter (which ends on March 27th), but the majority of those units will ship during the June quarter. And that partially explains the strength in that period's production numbers that we discussed above.
Despite the better than expected numbers forecast by the iPhone Tracker, it would appear that Apple will still report a historic year-over-year decline in iPhone sales when the current quarter's numbers are released late next month.
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source: StreetInsider via SeekingAlpha
According to Huberty, China has been providing the strongest growth of any country that is monitored on the AlphaWise iPhone Tracker despite a weak economy in Greater China, including Hong Kong. She expects Apple to build 40 million new iPhones during its second and third fiscal quarters. That is a sign of strength for Apple, which historically has a percentage decline in iPhone production in the low- to high-teens from fiscal Q2 to fiscal Q3.
A wild card here is the 4-inch Apple iPhone SE. Huberty says that the phone could ship in time to have some units count during the current quarter (which ends on March 27th), but the majority of those units will ship during the June quarter. And that partially explains the strength in that period's production numbers that we discussed above.
"Last week, Apple sent invitations for an event on their campus on Monday, March 21," the analyst commented. "They will likely announce a refresh to the current 4" iPhone (5s), which has been in the market since September 2013. It's possible the new iPhone ships before the end of the March quarter (ends 3/27) but the bulk of the contribution will come in the June quarter, helping explain better than seasonal builds."-Katy Huberty, analyst, Morgan Stanley
Despite the better than expected numbers forecast by the iPhone Tracker, it would appear that Apple will still report a historic year-over-year decline in iPhone sales when the current quarter's numbers are released late next month.
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source: StreetInsider via SeekingAlpha
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