“How well Wall Street receives Apple’s quarterly earnings these days depends almost entirely on the iPhone,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “In a good quarter — like fiscal Q1 2012, when Apple sold 35 million iPhones — the device will account for nearly 60% of the company’s total revenue. In a bad quarter — like Q3, when the 16.2 million units Apple sold accounted for 46% of its revenue — the iPhone will drag the company and its stock price down with it.”
P.E.D. reports, “Estimating iPhone sales for Q4 2012 — the quarter that ended Sept. 29 — is particularly tricky. For the first 10 weeks, unit sales were depressed by customers holding out for the new phone they kept reading about. For the last two weeks, the company sold iPhone 5s as fast as it could make them. How fast that was, and how slow sales were before the iPhone 5’s release, is anybody’s guess.”
“The low estimate this quarter, 21 million, was submitted by an independent — Shafiq Shamji of the Braeburn Group,” P.E.D. reports. “And before he lowered his forecast to 26.5 million on Monday, William Blair’s Anil Doradla was sitting on a Street-and-independent high estimate of 33 million. The average among both groups is 26.3, and the median is 27 million.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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Well, iPhone sales before iPhone 5 release were down comparing to previous quarter for obvious reasons, and Apple could only produce no more like seven million of iPhone 5 units.
Thus 25 million units could be the figure to expect.
Just count the number of cargo flights out of china and extrapolate from that. I’d figure 1 in 2 flights are carrying iPhones.
Crappy android phones likely go via ship since there’s not any rush to own one of those.
No matter how many millions they sold Wall Street will unrealistically find a negative angle to drive the stock down again.
Just look at Q3, Q4 2011 and extrapolate.
Very scary quarter. Tough call. Be very careful. Hope for the best and plan for the worst and you won’t be surprised. It’s earnings, it’s the street, so there’s no need to complain ahead of time. No whining allowed. No bitching about analysts and conspiracies. If you don’t want to play sit on the sidelines and watch. But no whining and no bitching. It happens every three months. It’s not like it’s something new. Put on your big boy pants, grit your teeth and put your money where your mouth is. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaa!
It’s such a dumb metric — just because of the quarter falls between the release dates it changes the outcome of the stock? Ridiculous! It should be based on the fundamentals of the company. Selling all the phones they can make despite raising capacity with every new release should be a good thing, signaling incredible demand and the stock should go through the roof. But sadly Wall Street isn’t rational.
Apple sold all iPhones since last q
More than 1, less than all
Ouch! My head hurts trying to grasp the implication of that logic. 🙂
“In a bad quarter — like Q3, when the 16.2 million units Apple sold accounted for 46% of its revenue — the iPhone will drag the company and its stock price down with it.”
The word “Exaggerate” comes to mind.
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