“Apple’s second fiscal quarter, which ended March 26, was a tricky one for analysts trying to figure out how many iPhones the company sold,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“Sales of cell phones and other electronic gadgets usually fall off after the holidays,” P.E.D. reports. “But on February 10, smack in the middle of the quarter, Apple launched the iPhone for Verizon, which should have boosted sales.”
P.E.D. reports, “The 43 analysts we polled — professionals and amateurs — were split on the question of whether iPhone sales rose or fell in Q2. Twenty five believe Apple sold more; 18 think it sold less. Their estimates ranged from a high of 19.8 million from Susquehanna’s Jeff Fidacaro to a low of 13.24 million from Goldman Sachs’ Bill Shope.”
Read more in the full article, with a chart of all 43 analysts’ Q2 2011 iPhone unit sales estimates, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
No one that was in the top 10 for Q1 estimated below 16M units. The top two from Q1 are around 18.3M units. It will be interesting to learn the actual figure.
You should look at that chart. I did not do the math. But it sure looks like the number of iPhones are doubling every year.
Kind of tsunami like and Apple makes money when they sell them and for years after too.
I think it’s interesting and worth noting how mum Apple has been on sales milestones regarding both the Verizon iPhone and iPad 2. With earlier products, Apple was only too happy to release a press release about how the 1st wknd went, or when they sold their 1st million, but for these, so far not a peep.
That’s probably because Apple needs to be cognizant that there are now TWO very large carriers selling iPhone in the U.S. market. Hyping the fact that there were X million iPhones sold by Verizon would undermine AT&T iPhone sales, and that would hurt Apple’s relationship with AT&T. It may even hurt overall iPhone sales.
In fact, I don’t recall Apple ever hyping sales figures through any single carrier. It is usually about the TOTAL number of iPhones sold, or the total number sold in a region. In the past, total sold in the U.S. market was the total sold for AT&T’s network, so that was OK. Not anymore…
I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple chose NOT to break down iPhones (or iPad) sales between Verizon and AT&T, and just gave a total number sold in the U.S. market.
Actually Apple didn’t, there were just tons of speculations and then Apple one or two times announced actual sales numbers (mostly at the same time when other products were introduced instead of just releasing a press release). Apple doesn’t want and cannot release daily or weekly sales numbers just to please analysts.
I bet Apple wants to wait for 5 million iPads2 sold before they will announce it, or will announce it at the WWDC.