Analysts Bump iPhone Expectations for Apple's Holiday Quarter

Three-quarters of the way through Apple's holiday quarter, a slew of analysts have increased their calculations of the company's performance, while expecting record iPhone sales on the back of Apple's most successful iPhone launch ever.

Interestingly, Citi analyst Richard Gardner claims to have specifically heard that Apple just last week made a significant boost to its iPhone orders with suppliers, suggesting significant upside for the current quarter.

Our meetings in Taiwan suggest that Apple raised 4CQ11 iPhone orders to suppliers meaningfully just last week. The new iPhone build plan is meaningfully above the low-30’s million figure that we were hearing previously. Given such a significant order increase at this late stage in the quarter, it seems clear that Apple is headed for a meaningful upside surprise on iPhone shipments this quarter.

Other analyst updates include:

- Maynard Um of UBS raised his estimate of iPhones sold on the quarter to 30 million from 28. Um noted that his team believes the 30 million number is still conservative, especially with an iPhone 4S launch in China pending.

- Shaw Wu of Stern Agee raised his iPhone expectations from 26 million to 28 million, though he believes those numbers could run even higher thanks to high demand from Asia.

- William Power of R.W. Baird raised his iPhone estimate to 31.2 million units.

- Mark Moskowitz of JP Morgan raised his iPhone estimates to 28 million units from 25.3 million.

- Mike Walkley of Canaccord Genuity raised his iPhone estimate to 30.5 million from 29 million units, saying "our November checks indicated strong global iPhone sales with Apple share gains versus Android smartphones in the US and Western Europe".

While the iPhone is expected to be a powerhouse this quarter, Power, Moskowitz and Walkley all cut expectations slightly on the iPad.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, on the most recent Apple earnings call in mid-October weighed in with his own expectations, saying his team was "very confident that we will set an all-time record in the December quarter for iPhone sales."