Analyst: Apple To Sell 5M IPhones In Fourth Quarter

Ed Sutherland ()

iphone
Apple will sell 5 million iPhones by the end of the fiscal fourth quarter, Sept. 30. That’s the word from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster Monday. The new estimate is higher than the 4.1 million handsets Munster had previously projected.

The analyst told clients he is “incrementally more confident” in Apple sales after market researchers at NPD Group said earlier this month Apple had a 32 percent jump in growth. Wall Street had predicted growth of around 25 percent.

However, Apple CEO Steve Jobs may not get his wish of 10 million iPhone sales by the end of the calendar year. Adding the 5 million Munster expects for the fourth quarter with the 2.4 million iPhones sold earlier in the year, Apple would reach 7.4 million handset sales, according to Fortune.

Along with boosting his outlook for iPhone sales during the fourth quarter, Munster also raised his estimates for other Apple products. Some 2.8 million Macs will be sold during the period, an increase from 2.5 million projected earlier. IPod sales will also top out at 11 million, a raise from 10.8 million in sales the analyst had predicted.

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Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • Paul Lustgarten

    Everyone, now, repeat after me: “calendar year” ≠ “fiscal year”. In fact, write it on the blackboard 500 times.

    Munster’s prediction is for sales in Apple’s fourth FISCAL quarter, which is the THIRD calendar quarter of the year. Apple’s stated goal for selling 10M iPhones is for CALENDAR year 2008. With 5M sold in the 3rd calendar quarter, selling at least that many again in the 4th calendar quarter should be a piece of cake, given that sales gradually ramp where it’s already on sale, and it will have been on sale in more countries for the whole quarter (wasn’t it something like 22 countries were added during this current quarter, and some more are still impending?). Not only that, but the 4th cal quarter is the peak-selling holiday season.

    It’s amazing to me that one simple sales goal (“10M iPhones in calendar 2008″) is subject to so much confusion ….

  • Mark

    Didn’t apple state that it wanted to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 at the launch of the iPhone, which was about half way through last year?
    So that all sales from the launch need to be factored in, not just sales from this calendar year.

  • Ed Sutherland

    Mark: I think you are right. I pulled up a USA Today quote on the day of the 2007 launch of the original iPhone — “In January Jobs projected sales of 10 million in the first 18 months, a figure he reiterated on Thursday.”

  • http://financial-alchemist.blogspot.com turley Muller

    It’s actually 10m in calandar 2008. Call it 2.5m 1st half, 5m estimate for Sept qtr, leaves 2.5m to beat in Dec qtr, I think the Sep qtr (Q4) will be higher than 5m. Likely close to 7m since shipments to carriers count as sales even though not sold to consumers. Apple has replenished the supply starvation of ATT and interantional carriers this month, so those shipments will count as sales for the quarter even though some of those units might not be purchased until the 1st or 2nd week of OCT.

    http://financial-alchemist.blogspot.com/2008/09/q4-sales-estimates-for-apples-3g-iphone.html

    There has been much confusion over the 10m sales goal. The media has quoted it wrong many times, as Apple was vague when first announced.

    However, Apple has clarified several times on conference calls, the goal is 10m in CY 2008. Jan 1 – Dec 31 2008. Not cumulative by 2008. but IN 2008.