“Four years after Steve Jobs introduced it, the iPad is Apple’s (AAPL) second biggest cash cow,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “If the iPhone generates a bit more than $5 of every $10 Apple collects, the iPad brings in nearly $2. And for both products, the holiday quarter — the one that Apple reports next Monday — is the big one.”
“iPad sales are harder to estimate than the iPhone’s this time. The iPad Air didn’t ship until Nov. 1, missing one third of the quarter; the new iPad Mini (with Retina display) showed up 12 days later and was in short supply all the way through Christmas,” P.E.D. reports. “But we’ve managed to collect unit sales estimates from 45 Apple analysts — 28 professionals and 17 amateurs.”
“The average estimate among all the analysts is 25 million iPads, up 10% from the same quarter last year.,” P.E.D. reports. “Last year, the pros were right and the indies wrong. The consensus was 24 million iPads, with the pros at 22.8 million and the amateurs at 25.5 million. The correct number, according to Apple, was 22.86 iPads. We’ll find out who was closest to the mark this year when Apple reports its Q1 1014 earnings after the markets close on Monday, Jan. 27.”
See all 45 Apple analysts’ iPad unit sales estimates here.
But but but ….. Apple market share is shrinking !
iPad: the best electronic ever created.
Most profitable company in the world….
TC promised and accurately called this an iPad Xmas.
What? Only ten percent? Certainly neither impressive nor sustainable. Android devices are in greater demand and are selling strongly. Apple is a $320 stock. Sell now. 😜
You’re trying to be sarcastic but you’re closer to the truth than you realize. Nothing Apple does is considered to be sustainable because Apple’s product prices are seen to be too much higher than every other competing company. Why buy an iPad or an iPhone when every similar Android or Windows device is half that price? For every one device Apple makes, Android manufacturers put out 25. Apple has become the proverbial ‘needle in a haystack’ in global smart device sales. There’s almost no way any Wall Street investor can justify paying over $600 a share for Apple because the share price is seen as expensive as Apple products and it’s just not worth it.
Google and Android dominate the entire internet and smart device market and Apple is being squeezed out completely but Tim Cook refuses to go directly after Google. Apple will simply let Google get more and more powerful and before you know it Google has become the latter day Microsoft. Of course, all the Loyal Apple Apologists won’t blame Tim Cook but instead blame it on bad luck or bad karma or whatever.
As long as Google and Android thrive, Apple will wither and Tim Cook needs to wake up before it’s too late. A few million more iPad sales doesn’t amount to a hill of beans to Wall Street. 10% sales growth is nothing. Google is thinking in terms of hundreds of millions of devices. That’s what’s making Wall Street salivate.
At this point, iOS devices continue to sell in the tens of millions on a quarterly basis, and Apple is accumulating tens of billions in profits on an annual basis. From a P/E standpoint, Apple is cheap relative to demonstrated, long term growth in sales, revenues, and profits.
You can go with one of those other high P/E stocks if you want. My money (literally) is on AAPL.
Every similar Android or Windows device is half that price?? I don’t think so. Not unless you have a very broad interpretation of the word “similar.”
For instance, where can you buy a Surface 2 tablet for $250…?
The real numbers come out next Monday. The real analysts take those numbers and analyze the trends. These guys call themselves analysts but they are nothing more than speculators at this point. Poor usage of the english language, but hey repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. At least that’s what we have seen before.
What is up with all of those “pros” with the lowball numbers? A couple of them are estimating only 21M iPad units for the holiday quarter. Crazy…