Analyst: Apple To Sell 15.8M U.S. iPhones In 2010

9:39 am, January 6th, 2010, Ed Sutherland

Credit: f-l-e-x/Flickr

While most eyes are on CES and attention focused toward Apple’s expected tablet, analysts predict 2010 will also be a gangbuster year for the iPhone. Apple should sell 36 million iPhones, a 40 percent increase over 2009. In what was described as a conservative projection, Piper Jaffray announced 15.8 million iPhones will be sold this year – by AT&T, alone.

Apple sold 11.3 million iPhones during calendar year 2009, according to the financial analysis firm.

AT&T, currently the exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.S., “will sell 15.8M units to its sub base of 82.5M” subscribers, estimates senior research analyst Gene Munster. The note to investors follows equally positive projects for the December financial quarter. The Cupertino, Calif. company will sell 9.5 million iPhones for the three-month period ended Dec. 26, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu.

Although Wu points to Apple sales despite the economic downturn for his higher-than-consensus estimate, Munster told investors gains in 2010 will come from a mix of a new handset expected mid-year and advances internationally. The analyst said 2010 will mark the first full year the iPhone will be sold in China, along with being available through multiple carriers in the U.K., France and Canada. Apple is expected to sell 1.6 million iPhones in China, according to Piper Jaffray.

“The results show that our international iPhone estimates may be a point of conservatism in our models,” the analyst wrote. The iPhone is now sold in 77 countries.

Although Apple is feeling increased competition from handsets using Google’s Android operating system, the company has a “well-established U.S. base” allowing it to expand to other countries, the analyst said.

What’s in store for 2011? Munster believes iPhone sales will continue upward, reaching 48.5 million units for the next calendar year.

[Via AppleInsider]

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About the author

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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