Neil Hughes
Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company issued a note to investors on Thursday in which he increased his June iPad shipment forecast from 13.5 million units to 20 million units. He admitted that his initial estimate made in April was "hastily formulated," which is why his latest prediction is so much larger.
"In our view, it's only a matter of time before iPad shipments exceed iPhone shipments," Wolf said. "The iPad is invading the business market at a much faster pace than the iPhone. In addition, the iPad will launch in China on July 20th. This should provide a significant boost in sales now that Apple is providing Chinese languages and services on its iOS platform."
If Wolf's prediction proves accurate and Apple does report sales of 20 million iPads in the June quarter, that number would be more than double the 9.25 million iPads Apple sold in the same quarter a year ago. It would also be a new record for iPad sales in any quarter, handily besting the 15 million iPads Apple sold in the holiday shopping season of 2011.
Wolf believes iPad sales have been particularly strong to both businesses and education institutions. He also believes the $399 16-gigabyte iPad 2 has been a major seller for Apple.
As for the iPhone, Wolf also increased his June quarter estimate to 28 million units, up from his previous prediction of 27 million shipped. It's expected that iPhone sales fell from the 35 million units Apple shipped in the March quarter.
"The assumption underlying our forecast of a sequential quarterly decline is that some customers have begun to postpone their purchases of an iPhone 4S in advance of a much widely publicized introduction of the new iPhone this fall," Wolf wrote.
Apple will report earnings for its third fiscal quarter of 2012 during a conference call on Tuesday, July 24, at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern. AppleInsider will have full, live coverage of the call.
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[quote name="AppleInsider" url="/t/151241/20-million-ipad-sales-projected-for-apples-june-quarter#post_2145347"]Apple is poised to report record breaking sales of 20 million iPads in the just-concluded June quarter, one analyst believes.
Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company issued a note to investors on Thursday in which he increased his June iPad shipment forecast from 13.5 million units to 20 million units. He admitted that his initial estimate made in April was "hastily formulated," which is why his latest prediction is so much larger.[/quote]
So we're supposed to take the word of someone who admits that his previous forecasts where hasty formulations? Why would we believe that he did a better job on this one?
Furthemore, wasn't there just an article that another analyst predicted that iPad sales would be lower?
Why not just admit that the big name analysts don't do any better than simply throwing a dart at the wall?
If this turns out to be true then I find this absolutely amazing. I've put the number at 14 million. I realize the RD v3 came out this year but I just couldn't see Apple besting the holiday quarter numbers until the next holiday quarter.
I'm sure that if the number is over 15 million then it has to be businesses that are driving the sales.
We know AppleInsider usually avoids mentioning the track record of its sources -- perhaps the most important and relevant piece of data regarding such posts -- and Charlie Wolf is one of those sources with a poor track record.
Wolf is not a four- or five-star rated analyst according to Starmine (a service which rates the financial predictions accuracy of professional financial analysts). Note that oft-quoted analysts like Munster, Wu, and Huberty also fail to make the grade, yet AppleInsider blissfully ignores they repeatedly poor track records.
That said, Charlie Wolf may be changing his ways. His predictions have gotten incrementally better over the past year according to Philip Elmer-Dewitt's chart:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/25/apples-blow-out-quarter-once-again-the-street-blew-it/
Whether or not Wolf's recent improvement is a real trend or just a one-time fluke remains to be seen. Wise readers will remain highly skeptical.
In no way to the professional analysts as a whole outclass the accuracy of the bulk of amateur Apple analysts.
I'd take Wolf's prediction with a large grain of salt as well as any financial prediction that AppleInsider reflags. As a matter of fact, it's statistically more likely that any financial performance prediction that AppleInsider posts will be wrong. They prefer to post the predictions of analysts who are crushingly bad at predicting Apple performance, and the professional financial analyst pool's record is pretty awful to begin with.
Of course, just drive great for sacrifice at the altar of the Temple of Almighty Pageviews, which is why this financial analyst prediction garbage is prominently posted on tech media sites.
I wish tech reporters would have a rule that would only note the top 5 (or so) analysts from the last quarter. If the Internets did this then perhaps they would try harder to be more accurate so they can get automatic recognition the next quarter.
With Apple entering new markets and needing to push iPads into those channels, which as a rule is counted as a sale, I don't see 20M as unreachable. How many were shipped just to China, regardless whether they've actually been sold to an end-user yet.