Early Guestimate for Apple Q1 Revenue: $60B, 55M iPhones

Asymco's Horace Dediu, after some admitted prodding, has published his initial, guestimate for Apple Q1 revenue and product sales. There are plenty of questions and caveats, but the numbers come from an experienced Apple analyst.

Mr. Dediu opens with an assessment of the many challenges to estimating Apple's number for the previous quarter and then goes on to give his best estimates as follows:

  • iPhone units: 55.5 million (50%/62%)
  • Macs: 5.0 million (-4%/+3%)
  • iPads: 24.4 million (58%/70%)
  • iPods: 11.2 million (-27%/-22%)
  • Music (incl. app) rev. growth: 25%/38%
  • Peripherals rev. growth: 10%/19%
  • Software rev. growth: 5.5%/14%
  • Total revenues: $60.0 billion (30%)
  • Gross margins: 39.8%
  • Earnings per Share: $15.74 (13%)

The analyst explains the growth numbers in parentheses. "The first is a straight y/y value and the second is adjusted by assuming there were 13 weeks last year (and that sales were evenly distributed over those weeks)."

While these number may be only preliminary estimates, if they're even close, it's a sign that Apple will report a very good quarter. (Apple's previous record for iPad sales in a quarter was 17 million and 37 million for the iPhone.)

Mr Dediu warns that he's uncomfortable with the forecast because of all the considerations and variables, and we'll know more as time goes along. Apple's formal earning report is on January 23 at 5 PM EST.