“Touchscreen supplier Wintek Corporation revealed on Thursday that its sales in November were up 74 percent month over month, an increase seen as a positive sign for sales of Apple’s iOS devices that is expected to push its stock price higher and offset recent losses,” Sam Oliver reports for AppleInsider.
“Analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities believes Apple is Wintek’s most important customer, and has interpreted the company’s stronger-than-average November as a sign that iPhone 4S sales are particularly strong,” Oliver reports. “He also believes Wintek’s success is an indication that Apple is rebounding from apparently reduced iPad 2 build orders in October, a reduction said to be due to an excess of parts purchased by Apple in the previous quarter.”
Oliver reports, “White sees another catalyst for AAPL stock on the horizon in the forthcoming launch of the iPhone 4S in mainland China. Carrier China Unicom is expected to begin selling the iPhone 4S this month, following government regulatory approval of the device. ‘We expect to see Apple fever on display throughout the country with long lines, stock outs and scuffles,’ he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple orders extra 5 million iPhone 4S units for holiday quarter, say sources – November 23, 2011
UBS: Rumors of iPhone order cutback are wrong – November 9, 2011
RUMOR: Apple cuts iPhone 4S, iPad 2 component orders for 4Q11 – November 9, 2011
I love how they propagate the myth that October’s component orders were cut.
“… a reduction said to be due to an excess of parts purchased by Apple in the previous quarter.”
That doesn’t suggest that Apple lowered orders for components due to weak demand or shortages of other key components that would necessitate a cut in iPad production, but because Apple had placed a lot of orders for components in previous months … likely to avoid shortages of iPads leading into the Christmas shopping season.
According to an analyst quoted in the article cited above, “We believe the data points at Apple’s suppliers will begin to look more positive over the next week as monthly sales from Apple’s suppliers are released and checks are consummated.”
I could have sworn I just saw some article that read iPad numbers were being lowered for this quarter. It’s hard to know which people are telling the truth.
Yeah, J.P. Morgan’s Mark Moscowitz was dropping iPad numbers from 13.3 million to 13 million. I know I wasn’t imagining it. It was just today,
The difference is between actual production numbers and sales forecasts.
Apple produced iPads for the Christmas season in the fall, then once inventories were ‘full,’ it reduced the rate of production and therefore components orders. (This is from Brian White of Ticonderoga.) After gauging component orders and other production data, analysts are really trying to figure out how many sales Apple expects.
That can be imprecise, not only because outside observers don’t have the big picture on component orders, but also because Apple might prefer to produce somewhat more units than it expects to sell; excess production in one quarter can be sold in the next.
By contrast, the iPad numbers reported in the media in recent days (13-14 million for the quarter) are sales forecasts.
These forecasts are independent of Apple’s internal projections. They were developed by analysts doing things such as going to a handful of Apple stores and counting the number of units sold on a single day … then using those observations to estimate total sales for the entire quarter: three months (not 1-2 days), total sales (not just in Apple stores) and worldwide (not just in the USA).
But analysts don’t know how many iPads Apple originally had in inventory, how many components assembly plants had stockpiled from earlier months, alternative sources for component parts or other relevant data — so there is no close relationship between component orders and actual sales in a given time period.
Efforts to link together the reports from various sources are understandable, but ultimately amount to very little EXCEPT in those cases when all (or an overwhelming preponderance) point to the same conclusion. This quarter, for iPads at least, they don’t.
Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities, who was quoted in the article, was on CNBC this afternoon. He monitors Taiwan-based component manufacturers and concluded that Apple had increased production of iPads in September and early October for the Christmas season, and the subsequent production cut occurred after the company had adequate inventories.