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How Many iPhones Did Apple Sell In The March Quarter?
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Three cheers for Mav!
Excellent research on iPhone sales!
Naw, three cheers for Big Al and Cl4 getting the ball rolling!
All I did was a little web searching and the electronic equivalent of thumbing through volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica or something. Populations are only numbers. That’s where the combined power of independent AAPL analysts can make a difference in parsing _through_ the numbers.
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Thanks, Steve. -
Mav ...
don’t second guess yourself…
only apple management knows the real number…and you have done a great job it trying to figure it out….
but now that the stock has tanked 10% we are starting to feel nervous…it is just human nature…
maybe they crush it…maybe not…50/50…flip a coin…
here is my basic barometer…
i run a 24hr diner…see lots of people…old, young, affluent, blue collar, you name it…always try to keep an eye on what type of phone they are carrying…last 3 months tons of iPhones 70% or droids 30%....girls 90% white phones…guys 90% black phones ...lots of 4’s and 4S (funny watching people eat and talk to SIRI)....but…interestingly with my non-scientific survey…influx of 3GSs…basically it is becoming the NOKIA “give away” for free for the masses….i.e. if you can’t afford the 4S here is an iphone anyway so you can be cool… antother interesting observation….the over 60 crowd carries mostly iPhones (maybe b/c they are really simple to use)
so…bottom line….iphone is the phone of choice…
stick with your number…
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Thanks for the perspective gyromac! If the FUDsters ignore demographics like from your restaurant, maybe they’ll have a harder time explaining away Apple taking 50%+ market share of all Verizon smartphones, most likely anyway, for two straight quarters now, from ZERO a little over a year ago.
If anything I’ve given thought to raising my 38.17M iPhone number. It’ll stay where it is for now.
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Thanks, Steve. -
adamthompson32
- [ Ignore ]
The only concern I have is that Turley is at 33.8 million. He has a very good grasp of iPhone sales (and Apple in general) and the fact that he is “low” is cause for serious concern. Then again, he can’t be right every quarter (he’s right almost every quarter though). I have zero doubt Apple planned for a sequential increase in iPhone sales and thus is producing more phones this Q than last. However, things can happen in the supply chain. I have no reason to think anything did happen but we can’t all just assume that Apple decides to make X iPhones and then automatically they make X iPhones. With all that said, I’m sticking with my 37.000001 million estimate.
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Extra data point that may have been overlooked: Sprint activated 1.8M iPhones last quarter.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/08/technology/sprint_earnings/index.htm
Investors clamoring for Sprint to un-have the iPhone are probably ignoring Sprint’s extremely precarious position long before it agreed to carry it. Not betting on LTE…sadly not the best business move.
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Thanks, Steve. -
Extra data point that may have been overlooked: Sprint activated 1.8M iPhones last quarter.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/08/technology/sprint_earnings/index.htm
Investors clamoring for Sprint to un-have the iPhone are probably ignoring Sprint’s extremely precarious position long before it agreed to carry it. Not betting on LTE…sadly not the best business move.
Mav
Thanks for posting this link about Sprint and your previous musings on off-shore deployment. I’ve moved back into the >=35m camp.
Every morning I tell myself to NOT buy and every damn day I do it! I’m hooked on aapl crack. If everything goes the way I ‘expect’ my last buy will be Tues near the close.
cheers
JohnG -
DawnTreader
- [ Ignore ]
Three cheers for Mav!
Excellent research on iPhone sales!
Naw, three cheers for Big Al and Cl4 getting the ball rolling!
All I did was a little web searching and the electronic equivalent of thumbing through volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica or something. Populations are only numbers. That’s where the combined power of independent AAPL analysts can make a difference in parsing _through_ the numbers.
Three cheers for Mav, Big Al and CI4!
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Mav
Thanks for posting this link about Sprint and your previous musings on off-shore deployment. I’ve moved back into the >=35m camp.
Every morning I tell myself to NOT buy and every damn day I do it! I’m hooked on aapl crack. If everything goes the way I ‘expect’ my last buy will be Tues near the close.
cheers
JohnGI put the little scraps of collected information out there (hopefully it’s accurate). I am of course an opinionated individual. But I’m not out to change anyone’s mind or influence anyone to move their estimates by a single unit with this particular thought exercise.
We’ll see by Tuesday how right or wrong we all were!
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The Summer of AAPL is here. Enjoy it (responsibly) while it lasts.
AFB Night Owl Team™
Thanks, Steve. -
Three cheers for Mav!
Excellent research on iPhone sales!
Ditto. Thanks Mav.
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The only concern I have is that Turley is at 33.8 million. He has a very good grasp of iPhone sales (and Apple in general) and the fact that he is “low” is cause for serious concern. Then again, he can’t be right every quarter (he’s right almost every quarter though). I have zero doubt Apple planned for a sequential increase in iPhone sales and thus is producing more phones this Q than last. However, things can happen in the supply chain. I have no reason to think anything did happen but we can’t all just assume that Apple decides to make X iPhones and then automatically they make X iPhones. With all that said, I’m sticking with my 37.000001 million estimate.
I saw that as well and was surprised with his estimate.
I see him as GM with a $1000 price target but very conservative quarterly projections from now on.
They must think it is funner to predict 33 million and be blown away.
Personally I think my 38 million is conservative after looking at Verizon. The fact that the iPhone is beating Android phones which have been advertised on Verizon for 3 years speaks volumes of word of mouth marketing.
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Well let’s ask directly: Turley, does any of our discussion so far make a difference in your thinking?
Verizon was an Android stronghold. Now?
The iPhone is crushing the competition worldwide (even *cough* Japan! Who knew, Wired magazine?). 33.8M is not a frighteningly low number by any means. Whose set of assumptions and analytics were more accurate? That’s all.
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The Summer of AAPL is here. Enjoy it (responsibly) while it lasts.
AFB Night Owl Team™
Thanks, Steve. -
I love seeing Verizon iPhone sales at over 50% share of smartphones….WITHOUT THE 3GS.
This a great thread, convinced me to raise my iPhone estimate.
I’m still struggling to see the overall sales restrictions for the iPhone, from the reasoning of the various contributors here, I’m convinced now that at least for the first 2 quarters after a iPhone refresh, apple is limited by the amount of iPhones it can make, with any drop in demand from launch countries made up for by expansion to new carriers/countries.
However this doesn’t last for the entire year does it? The October 2011 quarter is an obvious example of demand falling in anticipation of the next model - is this correct?
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Full Disclosure:
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- Pro: Apple HDTV, iPhone Air, Stock split, Consumer robotics -
here is my basic barometer…
i run a 24hr diner…see lots of people…old, young, affluent, blue collar, you name it…always try to keep an eye on what type of phone they are carrying…last 3 months tons of iPhones 70% or droids 30%....girls 90% white phones…guys 90% black phones ...lots of 4’s and 4S (funny watching people eat and talk to SIRI)....but…interestingly with my non-scientific survey…influx of 3GSs…basically it is becoming the NOKIA “give away” for free for the masses….i.e. if you can’t afford the 4S here is an iphone anyway so you can be cool… antother interesting observation….the over 60 crowd carries mostly iPhones (maybe b/c they are really simple to use)
so…bottom line….iphone is the phone of choice…
stick with your number…
Good anecdotal evidence that dovetails with my own observations (and many others here, I’m sure). I see more white iPhones than black and without the gender split you see.
The extra # of iPhones noted in the wild appear at the expense of BlackBerrys—I’m seeing fewer and fewer of these. The rest are Androids and “feature” phones. Windows phones in Microsoft’s backyard remain an outlier.
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DawnTreader
- [ Ignore ]
here is my basic barometer…
i run a 24hr diner…see lots of people…old, young, affluent, blue collar, you name it…always try to keep an eye on what type of phone they are carrying…last 3 months tons of iPhones 70% or droids 30%....girls 90% white phones…guys 90% black phones ...lots of 4’s and 4S (funny watching people eat and talk to SIRI)....but…interestingly with my non-scientific survey…influx of 3GSs…basically it is becoming the NOKIA “give away” for free for the masses….i.e. if you can’t afford the 4S here is an iphone anyway so you can be cool… antother interesting observation….the over 60 crowd carries mostly iPhones (maybe b/c they are really simple to use)
so…bottom line….iphone is the phone of choice…
stick with your number…
Good anecdotal evidence that dovetails with my own observations (and many others here, I’m sure). I see more white iPhones than black and without the gender split you see.
The extra # of iPhones noted in the wild appear at the expense of BlackBerrys—I’m seeing fewer and fewer of these. The rest are Androids and “feature” phones. Windows phones in Microsoft’s backyard remain an outlier.
Very good observations, especially about the 3GS which is probably more of a factor in unit sales than most people think.
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Indeed!
And iPhone is still fighting with one hand tied behind its back with the iPhone 4/4S combo on Verizon. When iPhone 4 becomes “free”...look out.
Not like it “matters” really. iPhone started life as a GSM phone, after all. The 3GS invasion continues apace, and it’s only gonna get worse by October.
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The Summer of AAPL is here. Enjoy it (responsibly) while it lasts.
AFB Night Owl Team™
Thanks, Steve.
