Apple Inc. (AAPL, Financial) has already let the IPhone6 and IPhone6 plus out of its bag and the market is busy sweeping all of them.
Looking at the rate of sales of IPhone6 it seems the expression "selling like hotcakes" would be an understatement. The preorder booking numbers has hit the sky in such quantum that Apple has declared that it will take them until next month to fulfill the demand. Let us have a quick roundup of the streets abuzz with the IPhone6 frenzy.
The numbers on Apple counter
The current Apple frenzy is not new for the company but this time the numbers are overwhelming. The preorder numbers for iPhone6 have already broken the previous records and are going up by leaps and bounds. Apple Inc. said many customers will need to wait until next month for their new iPhones after a record 4 million first-day preorders were logged, double the number for the iPhone 5 two years ago. Apple says the demand has outstripped the supply numbers. To quote Wells Fargo Securities analysts, he said, "Assuming preorders are similar to the 40 percent of first weekend sales for the iPhone 5, this would imply iPhone 6/6Plus first weekend sales could be around 10 million."
Taking a look at the past numbers when IPhone5 first hit the shelves in September 2012, it recorded a first-day preorder booking of 2 million, and Apple sold a whopping 5 million in the first weekend. The IPhone5S and IPhone5C met with similar fates last year when they were launched. The moment they hit the shelves they sold 9 million units in just three days.
Analyst Raymond James expects sales of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus to top 9 million in the first weekend.
This Frenzy has not only sent the numbers for a tizzy surge but also has unsettled the Apple shop floor. This is not the first time that the Apple assembly line is going for a tizzy with the production demand but each time Apple launched a smartphone re-design this has been the typical scenario. Apple's website showed last week that the larger 5.5-inch "Plus" models displayed a wait time of up to a month. The 4.7-inch version was available for delivery on the 19th of September. This means that any IPhone6 coming out of the Apple facility will get sold the moment it reaches the sales counter at least until October. According to Janney, a capital market analyst this surge in pre order numbers was due to the increasing demand for bigger IPhone screen.
The phones will come equipped with Apple's new payments service, "Apple Pay," which would be launched in the United States next month and would allow users to pay for items in stores with their phones.
This is a testimony to the fact that, despite the market being flooded with N number of smartphones with different screen sizes and sporting various features and benefits, the desire for the slice of Apple still rules the market and has proven to be the greatest nightmare of a lot of handset makers. Not to forget the perennial combat between Apple and Samsung (SSNLF, Financial), Samsung has also got its arsenal lined up for launch but the numbers is what time will only prove. For now the Apple IPhone6 plays the show stopper and rules the stage across the world.
The brokerage has already stacked up their numbers by putting its sales estimate for the latest iPhones6 to 37.4 million units for the current quarter and 60 million for the quarter ending in December 2014. "We believe significant demand will even spill into the March and June quarters given supply and the timing of shipments in China," Barclay’s analysts wrote in a note.
According to Apple the IPhone6 will hit the shelves in the Apple stores across the United States, Canada, Australia and some other countries on Friday morning – which means several parts of the world would report long queues of customers outside Apple stores waiting to grab a slice of the latest Apple produce. AT&T Inc., Sprint Corp, T-Mobile US Inc., Verizon Wireless and some Apple-authorized resellers will also start selling the phones on Friday.
Slice of Apple for the investors
Apple's shares were up less than 1 percent at $102.92 in the Monday afternoon trading session. However seeing the current number rise and the market fanfare, the rise in Apple’s stock prices can be fathomed for the near future. It would be interesting to watch the market reaction once the IPhone6 hits the stores and the reseller’s shelves.
