Although these various estimates have been posted here, I thought it might be useful ahead of earnings to collect them all in one place.
This 9/12/08 article from Seeking Alpha (posted on this thread somewhere) estimated that Apple had sold 6 million 3G iPhones with 3 weeks of the quarter still to go:
seekingalpha.com
The author of that article further estimated that 3G iPhone sales would reach 7+ million for the quarter. These estimates are based on the Net Applications approach of estimating the OS market share/user base from internet usage data.
Also referenced in that article was the completely different Mac Observer AFB approach of tracking of IMEI numbers on sold iPhones. According to the 9/12/08 Seeking Alpha article, as of 8/30/08, that approach indicated 5.6 million 3G iPhones sold.
Review of the tracking spreadsheet for the AFB approach confirms the 8/30/08 5.6 million sales number, and further indicates 6.8 million 3G iPhones sold as of 9/24/08:
spreadsheets.google.com
This would translate to 7.2 million units for the quarter.
The 9/12/08 Seeking Alpha article cited the following analyst estimates for Q4:
Piper Jaffrey: 4.5 million
Credit Suisse: 4.2 million
Pacific Crest: 3.5 million
Financial Alchemist: 7-8 million
The Piper Jaffrey analyst (Munster) recently on 9/22/08 raised his Q4 estimate to 5 million units:
ipodobserver.com
His July-December 2008 estimate is 11.4 million, FY2009 36 million, calendar year 2009 45 million.
Although Pacific Crest has the lowest and most conservative estimate above, they did raise their sales estimate to 11 million for July-December 2008, despite reducing their number for Apple's "build plan" for the same period. They also increased their FY2009 estimate to 20 million (from 15 million) for FY2009 - this seems really low to me.
messages.finance.yahoo.com
messages.finance.yahoo.com
Pacific Crest did not provide a Q4 estimate, but since they are close to Piper Jaffrey for the 6 month time period, it seems likely their Q4 estimate is around 5 million also.
We of course do not know how the analysts arrived at their estimates, and to be fair they may not include the impact of the 22 country roll out on 8/22, or the 1000 store Best Buy roll out on 9/9/08.
So, there is the potential for considerable upside to the published analyst estimates for Q4 iPhone sales, especially the Pacific Crest estimate which appears way too low.
It will be interesting to see when Apple reports Q4 if the totally different Net Applications and AFB approaches to predicting sales - which are in agreement at 7+ million units - are closer to reality than the published analyst estimates.
My own financial model is based on these estimates, with downside to the mean of the apparently conservative analyst estimates.
The Piper Jaffrey analyst (Munster) projections of "booked" vs "recognized" revenue from iPhone sales are also worth a look.
Even with his possibly conservative 5 million Q4 sales, he estimates that iPhone revenue of $510 million will be recognized in Q4, vs $61 million in Q4 FY2007 (Y/Y), and $246 million in Q3 FY2008 (Q/Q).
Further, with his projected sales, by Q4 FY2009, recognized revenue from iPhone sales will reach close to $2 billion for the quarter. And that's well before we see the full impact of the 24 month revenue recognition approach or a levelling out of iPhone sales volumes, if that occurs at all any time in the next few years.
David |
