Apple to sell at least 36 million iPhones in 2010
A respected analyst says that he expects Apple to sell 36 million iPhones in calendar 2010, but admits that his numbers may be low because both domestic and international sales may be higher than his estimate.
Noted Apple product maven and financial analyst Gene Munster, a senior research analyst with Piper Jaffray, is confident that 36 million is a very safe estimate of handsets sold in 2010. He believes that about 15.8 million will be sold in the Unites States, with the balance sold internationally. In the same note to investors, Munster hedges his bets on two areas. He feels that any expansion to other U.S. carriers in 2010, which is likely, will increase sales even further. He believes that actual sales will be better than he is predicting for international sales, as well.
Munster says in the newsletter, “We estimated unit figures for the U.S., U.K., France and Germany, then divided the remaining units proportionally by sub count among the remaining carriers. The results show that our international iPhone estimates may be a point of conservatism in our model. For example, we are modeling for three Russian carriers to sell 1.8M units into a collective sub base of 160M in (calendar year) 2010 vs. AT&T which we estimate will sell 15.8M units to its sub base of 82.5M. … We continue to believe that it is highly likely that Verizon will launch the iPhone by the end of 2010. However, Verizon is not in our model and may be a source of significant upside for iPhone units in 2010 and beyond.”
Munster says that, in his opinion, the iPhone will continue its spectacular growth into 2011, according to an AppleInsider story. To that end, he is predicting that Apple will sell 48.5 million units in calendar year 2011. By anyone’s thinking, that is a lot of smartphones, and an incredible amount of revenue for Apple. Munster’s estimates for the iPhone appear to outstrip even the overall growth for the burgeoning smartphone sector, making it likely that Apple will continue to gain market share.
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