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iPhone 5 Sales Predicted to Hit 8 Million Units in Launch Weekend

Monday September 17, 2012 11:13 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Following Apple's announcement earlier today that it took two million iPhone 5 pre-orders in the first 24 hours of availability, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has published a new research note predicting that Apple will achieve sales in the range of 6-10 million units for the opening weekend, with the mid-range number of 8 million units being used for modeling purposes. Munster bases his predictions on the strong pre-order numbers and comparisons to last year's performance for the iPhone 4S.
Given the 2 million pre-orders, we remain confident that Apple can deliver 8 million (range of 6-10 million) iPhones in the launch weekend. The reason we are confident in the 8 million is two-fold. First, initial 24 hour pre-orders for the iPhone 5 were up 100% y/y from the iPhone 4S. Last year, pre-orders accounted for 25% of total weekend launch unit sales. Assuming the same initial pre-order/retail distribution, the pre-order total would suggest 8 million launch units.
Last year, Apple reported that first-day pre-orders for the iPhone 4S "topped one million", with that number translating into over four million units sold in the opening weekend of actual sales.


Munster notes that with Apple's fourth fiscal quarter of 2012 coming to a close at the end of September and the company already quoting shipping estimates of 2-3 weeks for new iPhone 5 pre-orders, some of the launch weekend total may actually bleed over into the following quarter, as Apple recognizes revenue once orders ship to customers.

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ECUpirate44
87 months ago
Competition seems to be doing well.
(http://gifsoup.com/view/2404063/steve-ballmer.html) GIFSoup (http://gifsoup.com/)
Rating: 31 Votes
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STiNG Operation
87 months ago
8 Million times the average dollar amount of all the iPhones sold equals....
Rating: 25 Votes
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Caliber26
87 months ago
It doesn't take a genius to figure out who's a winner inside and outside of court.
Rating: 17 Votes
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adcx64
87 months ago
This is amazing, I'm sure Steve's smiling from heaven.
Rating: 14 Votes
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2bikes
87 months ago
This is a the biggest flop I have ever seen.
Rating: 13 Votes
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IamRob
87 months ago

iphone huh? does the phone company come to my house to install it? I'd prefer avocado as that is the color of the rest of the kitchen


are you on drugs?
Rating: 11 Votes
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Virtualball
87 months ago

Just curious. How long did the SIII to reach that number?


Roughly two months to get to 10 million :O

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57477475-94/samsung-galaxy-s3-hits-10-million-sales-mark-early/
Rating: 11 Votes
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Icaras
87 months ago
Just curious. How long did the SIII take to reach that number?
Rating: 10 Votes
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LagunaSol
87 months ago
"That's 8 million morons who'd be better off with a big, plastic, ad-based phone from Korea. Did you know we make refrigerators too?" - Samsung
Rating: 10 Votes
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doelcm82
87 months ago

Pent up demand for LTE.

They could have had LTE on a competitor's phone.

This was pent up demand for LTE on an iPhone.
Rating: 9 Votes

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