Anyone holding onto the mistaken belief that Apple waited too long to launch a big-screen iPhone got their correction during Apple’s recent earnings call, when the company revealed it shipped a massive 74.5 million iPhones during the last three months of 2014 — representing more than half of Apple’s total revenue for the quarter.
iPhone 6 mania isn’t going away anytime soon, either, according to estimates provided by sources in Apple’s supply chain. Based on orders received, manufacturers reportedly expect Apple to ship more than 50 million additional iPhones by the end of March.
If correct, those numbers would be 14.4 percent higher than the 43.7 million iPhones Apple shipped during the same period last year, when the company’s two new iPhone models were the iPhone 5c and 5s.
Given the success of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and the fact that full number releases (i.e. the iPhone 4, 5, 6…) tend to do better than incremental “s” launches, I wouldn’t be at all surprised were this to happen. In fact, I’d be surprised if it didn’t.
Further pushing up sales this quarter is likely to be Apple’s continued expansion into greater China, which celebrates its Lunar New Year later this month. With sales in China increasing 70 percent in the last three months of 2014 (compared to the same period the year before), along with the added buying incentive of a national holiday like Chinese New Year, I think we’re going to continue to see big numbers on the iPhone 6 front.
With that in mind, supply chain sources reportedly claim that the ratio of Asia-Pacific sales to iPhone shipments elsewhere will continue to rise.
Source: Digitimes
