Last year, despite the constant cries from naysayers that Cupertino had lost its edge, Apple blew past all expectations by shipping over 259.5 million iOS devices.
So how many iOS devices will Apple ship in 2015? According to one reputable industry analyst, a staggering 320 million iOS devices.
Over at Asymco, industry analyst Horace Dediu lays out his rationale in a series of charts.
It basically breaks down to this. In the past, the number of devices Apple sells has tied in very closely to its capital spending pattern.
In 2014, Apple’s planning on spending a lot of money — $12 billion — on capital spending. This would include money spent on making new devices, building factories, releasing the Apple Watch, finishing the Spaceship Campus, and so on.
If the correlation between Apple’s capital spending and iOS devices sold in a year holds to pattern, that means they are on track to sell 310 to 320 million iOS devices this year.
We’ll see if that holds true. As Dediu notes, the capital spending budget might be thrown out of whack this year by things like constructing the Spaceship Campus, which won’t directly translate into iOS device sales.
One thing’s for sure. No matter how you cut it, we’re in for a big year.
Update: This post has been corrected to reflect predictions for 2015, not 2016.
Source: Asymco