Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has announced that it received more than 2 million iPhone 5 preorders on the opening day of sales, thereby more than doubling the figure recorded for the iPhone 4s last October. The iPhone 4s could only manage 1 million preorders in the first 24 hours, as compared to iPhone 5’s tally, which just smashed all record books we know.
Apple’s head of marketing, Philip Schiller, is quoted in a statement, as noted by CNET News, saying, “iPhone 5 preorders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal,”
The overwhelming preorders have to have consequences in the company’s roll-out plans, and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) confirmed this by expressing that it would have to postpone some deliveries to some of the countries scheduled for for this quarter. This therefore means that, despite the possibility of further raising the initial Q4 (company’s fiscal) estimates, the December quarter will definitely hit the roof in terms of units shipped.
According to our previous reports, the company is expected to hit between 20 and 25 million units, while estimates for the December quarter ranged between 45-50 million estimates, according to figures in the markets. There is no doubt that while suspensions of some deliveries are imminent, the estimated unit sales would be on the upside.
In truth, Apple does face some bottleneck in supply, due to inventory related constraints. Postponing some deliveries will definitely ease pressure on the current quarter, but consequently put pressure on the Q412. Nonetheless, this should give the company ample time to work its way out of the quagmire, which then, would obviously mean sorting out the inventory quandary.
As featured in our previous report, we highlighted Apple’s manufacturing component commitments, as well as prepaid purchases; this indicated the company’s expectation of a high influx of demand for its iPhone 5, following the mediocre appetite from consumers in the recent past. Many consumers held on to their funds awaiting the new commodity.
The new record preorders comes at a surprise to many, including rival competitors, like Samsung Electronics and Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK), which despite the “few improvements on the new iPhone “, as compared to the its predecessor, it still managed to amass such a number in the first day of preorders.
Indeed, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has actually gotten a good number of the new preorders from its rivals’ former customers, with some probably ditching Blackberry Devices, which are manufactured by Research In Motion.
The magnitude of the surprise is also replicated in analysts’ reactions, with some raising the quantity of sale units to be shipped this month by more than 50%. It is only a matter of time before more equity analyst firms adjust (what could be a third time for some), their estimates on the company’s sales units and earnings.
