Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) won’t unveil their holiday quarter sales numbers until January 27th, but that doesn’t stop analytic firms from making predictions in advance. Several analysts are a step ahead in the game with their sale estimates for the both the iPad and iPhone.
Apple sees impressive sale numbers
Some analysts already predicted possible record quarterly sales of 55 million iPhones, making a 16% increase year over year. A follow-up report released today from Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt indicates iPad sales could reach 10% year over year. He explained, “iPad sales are harder to estimate than the iPhone’s this time. The iPad Air didn’t ship until Nov. 1, missing one third of the quarter; the new iPad Mini (with Retina display) showed up 12 days later and was in short supply all the way through Christmas. But we’ve managed to collect unit sales estimates from 45 Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) analysts — 28 professionals and 17 amateurs. The results are summarized in the attached bar graph.”
Holiday sales demonstrated a strong start
Not surprisingly, earlier sales number estimates reflect similar to analyst expectations. Black Friday weekend shopping sales showed the iPad lineup accounted for 18% of all sales. And one top selling item at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) that weekend was the iPad Mini. On Christmas Day, the App Store has a sharp increase in revenue sales by 56% and a jump in downloads by 53%.
Last month, analytics firm Localytics shared numbers of new devices activated over Black Friday weekend. There was a 51% increase in iPad Air tablets and 26% increase in iPad Mini. It’s important to note that this data did not include devices purchased over Black Friday weekend, but rather put aside for holiday gifts – which likely means the numbers were even higher than reported.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will officially announce their quarterly earnings on January 27th, 2014 after the trading markets close for the day.
