Apple Predicted to Sell 75 Million iPhones, 4 Million Apple Watches During Holiday Quarter

KGI Securities analyst Min-Chi Kuo is predicting that Apple will sell between 70-75 million iPhones, and 3.5-4 million Apple Watches during the holiday quarter. However, Kuo says that sales momentum could decline in the new year, possibly even posting a year-over-year shipment decline for the first time in the first quarter of 2016.

We estimate iPhone shipments rose 2.1% QoQ and 23.6% YoY to 48.5mn units in 3Q15, of which 20-22mn units were iPhone 6s. We attribute the solid YoY growth to the inclusion of China as the first-launch market for iPhone 6s and to increased output of the new model (versus 14-15mn units of iPhone 6 in 3Q14).

However, as we do not expect overall demand for iPhone 6s to be significantly stronger than that for iPhone 6, we expect shipments momentum could gradually decline in 4Q15-1Q16F on a YoY basis. We expect iPhone may see its first YoY shipments decline in the first quarter of a year in 2016.

Kuo also forecasted 14.5 million iPad shipments and 5.4-5.6 Mac shipments over the holiday quarter.

We now expect shipments of iPad Pro to be around 2mn units in 4Q15, versus our previous forecast of 4-5mn units given quality issues with Sharp’s panel supply. However, thanks to a higher shipments weighting of iPad Pro, coupled with a lower mix of iPad mini, we anticipate the ASP of end-products and some components will trend up in 2016F (e.g. we estimate the ASP of backlight unit to rise 30-35% in 2016). This should be enough to offset total iPad shipments decline, which we estimate will fall 16% to 40-42mn units in 2016F.

Notably, Kuo says the 13.3 MacBook Pro is Apple's most popular notebook, followed by the 12-inch MacBook. The new iMacs are expected to account for 50-60% of iMac shipments this quarter.


[via MacRumors]