New research says more of us will be unwrapping a brand new iPhone this holiday season. Apple
Thanks to lucrative distribution deals with AT&T
Now a Morgan Stanley analyst says survey data shows accelerating sales of the device: 31 million to 36 million iPhones sold during the holiday quarter followed by 41 million more sold in Q1. If the trend holds, consumers could end up buying 190 million iPhones over the next fiscal year.
Better still, if history holds, that would equal a whopping $123.7 billion in just iPhone revenue. For perspective, consider that all of Apple generated $108.25 billion in sales in fiscal 2011.
(Ahem.)
Numbers like these should have skeptical investors running for the hills. Instead, shares of Apple have badly lagged the S&P 500 in the three months since co-founder Steve Jobs died.
Look, I get the sentiment. I'm a Mac user. I've been an admirer of Jobs for some time now. But how do you let sympathy for Jobs overshadow the data? How do you look at these projections and not conclude that analysts are lowballing Apple at 10 times forward earnings?
Maybe it'll help to consider the bear case, which says that Google
Taking these and other competitive pressures into account, ABI Research projects Apple selling 120 million iPhones in fiscal 2012. Thus, according to the dourest of estimates, Apple only takes home around $78.1 billion from iPhone sales next year going by current prices. See the problem?
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