Continued...
The piece, written by JRPG’s Lisa Thompson and Rethink’s Peter White, notes that there are two schools of thought on iPhone sales from here. The bears assert that the combination of large numbers of phones in the channel, consumer conservatism and the unfolding recession will mean the company “cannot produce another quarter like the last.”
The bulls, they note, point out that the strong Q3 sales did not have the advantage of the holiday selling season, and that the phone will be more broadly available around the globe in Q4; the optimists think the company will “knock the leather off the ball once again.”
The analysts who wrote the report are in the bullish camp. In particular, they are bullish on sales outside the U.S., where they contend the real consumer crunch will not hit until after the holidays. “It’s not that we don’t believe that the recession will bite hard across Europe and Asia, but it won’t bite the man in the Street until after Christmas,” they write.
Rethink contends that, given better availability this time in Europe and Asia, even if AT&T sells only half the 2.5 million phones it sold in the September quarter, the company should sell more phones in the December quarter than it did last time; and they think 8 million is possible. If that happens, they add, given the huge profit Apple makes on the phone, “then it will have ready another upside surprise when they report the quarter, even if iPods go into an anticipated decline.”
Wolf, by the way, thinks the number could eventually head into the stratosphere: his report asserted that if the company were to to cut its price and trade some margin for market share, “the iPhone could effectively take over the smartphone market.”
Apple today fell $3.45, or 3.1%, to $107.59.
"Making the iphone obsolete will enable the lower income groups to afford it. Sales will surely increase in the coming days."
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