Neil Hughes
Analyst Chris Whitmore with Deutsche Bank said in a note to investors on Tuesday that checks over the holidays indicated that Apple saw better-than-expected demand for both the iPad and the Mac. In addition, consumer demand for the iPhone showed no signs of slowing down, even as rumors of a Verizon iPhone loomed over the holiday buying season.
Over the holidays, Deutsche Bank checked in at more than 50 Apple retail and partner stores, and found lines and crowds driving "robust" demand for the iPhone. Despite this high demand, these checks found Apple was well prepared, with few stock-outs ahead of Christmas.
Whitmore said demand for the iPad, which remains "largely unchallenged" in the market, is tracking ahead of his model, and has accordingly increased sales estimates from 6 million to 6.5 million for the fourth quarter of calendar 2010. He also sees Apple selling 28 million iPads in 2011, up from his previous estimate of 22 million.
Checks suggested that the 32GB iPad with 3G connectivity was the most popular seller during the holiday season. And the attractive $999 price tag of the new 11-inch MacBook Air also prompted noteworthy demand.
"Apple continues to benefit from the strongest product offering in its history and the strong double-barreled product cycle is driving massive global demand for iPads and iPhones," he wrote. "Both categories are benefiting from additional carriers, international expansion, and limited competition."
The analyst also upped his iPhone sales projections for the holiday period to 16 million, up a million from the previous estimate of 15 million. He now expects Apple to sell 60 million iPhones in calendar year 2011, up from 55 million.
Whitmore's estimates do not, however, include the prospect of a Verizon iPhone, widely reported to become available in early 2011. He believes that the addition of Verizon as a U.S. carrier could bump Apple's iPhone sales up by 5 million to 7 million units.
"We expect a CDMA based iPhone to be a significant positive for AAPL with limited cannibalization at AT&T," he said. "Our DB colleague Brett Feldman, who covers Telecom Services, estimates that Verizon will add roughly 15M iPhones in 2011 with 6M cannibalized from AT&T."
Wall Street analysts will continue to share and revise their predictions in the weeks to come on what is generally expected to be another record breaking quarter for Apple. The Cupertino, Calif., company is set to report the earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2011 on Tuesday, Jan. 18, and AppleInsider will have full live coverage as it happens.
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40 Comments
It depends on whose expectations you are judging by doesn't it
I totally expected a blow out although many held back for iPad v2 so that launch is also going to be way past 'expectations' too.
Buy that AAPL folks .. it is only just getting started ...
I wonder how many other retail outlets Deutsche bank did this sort of research to.
Did they station guys outside of Walmart?
Did they have them outside of GM dealerships?
How about Yankee Candle outlets? Why Apple only? I mean, this was concerted effort, with at least 100 people, plus support personal, to measure Apples performance. How much is this data worth, anyway?
I wonder how many other retail outlets Deutsche bank did this sort of research to.
Did they station guys outside of Walmart?
Did they have them outside of GM dealerships?
How about Yankee Candle outlets? Why Apple only? I mean, this was concerted effort, with at least 100 people, plus support personal, to measure Apples performance. How much is this data worth, anyway?
redacted... error Will Robinson.
The closer scrutiny is required due to AAPL's secretive nature in many regards, and also because of it's growth rate. The do similar things in different ways for other companies. It gives a very good sanity check.
Maybe international sales aren't as solid as US, but I see about 5-10x as many iPads on the street as 3 months ago. That makes it hard for me to believe they didn't sell 8-9MM units this quarter, and it seems like it should be closer to 15MM... but I don't think that is physically possible.
I wonder how many other retail outlets Deutsche bank did this sort of research to.
Did they station guys outside of Walmart?
Did they have them outside of GM dealerships?
How about Yankee Candle outlets? Why Apple only? I mean, this was concerted effort, with at least 100 people, plus support personal, to measure Apples performance.
I was at an Apple store last week waiting at the Genius Bar and I saw a guy sitting on a bench just outside the store doors. He was there for over an hour. When I left, I looked over his shoulder and he had two crossword puzzles on a clipboard except that he was filling in sections with tally marks instead of letters.
I don't know how many people like him were in malls around the country, but there is no doubt. In my mind that he was working for some analyst...
Thats easy. If you can get information about how a publicly traded company is doing before anyone else, it can be worth millions (assuming you have enough money to act on that information).
In articles yesterday, there was a great deal of discussion about AAPL being under valued for it's growth rate (for whatever reason--enormous market cap/disrespect/anti-Apple bias...) so any indication that sales growth is exceeding expectations could be expected to have a spring-loaded impact on it's price!