Tag Archives: aapl

UBS sees June quarter iPhone sales well above estimates

Apple (AAPL) iPhone 6 sales have remained strong, despite growing chatter about the company’s follow-on smartphone likely to be released in September. UBS analyst Steven Milunovich on Thursday raised his iPhone unit sales target for the June quarter. UBS pegs iPhone demand for the current quarter at 51.1 million units, well above the Wall Street consensus sell-through estimate of about 45 million, he said in a research note. Apple reports iPhone sales on a sell-in vs. sell-through basis. So, adjusting for supply issues and sales channel inventory changes, UBS raised its sell-in estimate to 48 million units from 43 million. With the higher iPhone sales, UBS increased its fiscal 2015 earnings-per-share estimate to $9.17 from $9.04. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Apple to deliver EPS of $8.99 for the fiscal year ending Sept. 26, up 39%. Milunovich rates Apple stock as a buy with a 12-month price target of…

Apple Watch gross margins will start low but then rise

The gross profit margin for the Apple Watch is below Apple’s (AAPL) company average but has the potential to well exceed that average, UBS said in a research report Wednesday. Based on a teardown analysis of the smartwatch, UBS estimates that the product’s gross margin initially will be about 34% but could rise to 57% when it hits an annual volume of 40 million to 50 million units. UBS is modeling for 31 million units in fiscal 2016, which starts Sept. 27. Apple said that it expects the Apple Watch’s gross margin will be below the corporate average of about 39% in the June quarter. Apple’s gross margin was 40.8% in the March quarter. “Over time we expect Watch margins to be accretive and possibly the highest of any hardware offering, even with our analysis excluding likely highly profitable Edition models and band sales,” the equity…

Apple iPhone Users Boosting T-Mobile Postpaid Gains

Selling Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone is helping T-Mobile US (TMUS) gain share in the market for postpaid subscribers — the highly valued customers that spend the most on wireless services. In Q1, T-Mobile added 991,000 postpaid mobile-phone customers, the only gainer among the big four national wireless carriers. AT&T (T) lost roughly 290,000, Sprint (S) 201,000 and Verizon Communications (VZ) 138,000. None of the four disclosed iPhone activations,