Morgan Stanley calls for higher Q1 iPhone, iPad numbers
updated 11:45 am EST, Mon January 23, 2012
Firm holds out until just before Apple Q1 results
Apple should do better than expected in terms of iPhone and iPad sales for its fiscal first quarter, says Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty. "Our US holiday survey and intra-quarter comments from AT&T and Verizon indicated stronger iPhone demand than we initially expected, and give us conviction that iPhone units will beat our estimate of 30 million," she writes in a recent memo. "We believe Apple also has a good chance of exceeding our estimate of 13 million iPads as our US survey suggests demand remained strong in the quarter despite the Amazon Fire launch.
"We expect Mac units to be roughly in-line with our estimate of 4.9 million, according to preliminary IDC data (though we note the original Street estimate of 5.0M may be too aggressive)," she continues. "We also see about 100bps of gross margin upside to our estimate of 40.4% due to a higher mix of iPhone revenue in the December quarter and better iPhone yields given limited changes from iPhone 4 to 4S."
Morgan Stanley is notably one of a few firms that have held off on updating Apple predictions between quarters. The institution last issued a note on October 19th, immediately after Apple's Q4 2011 results were announced. Apple is in fact scheduled to publish its Q1 2012 results tomorrow, January 24th.
