Apple is announcing its third-quarter earnings on July 22nd, but in the meantime we’ll have to be satisfied with hearing the projections of various financial analysts. Today’s latest predictions come from Maynard Um at Wells Fargo Securities, and in a report picked up by AppleInsider, he projects that Apple will beat Wall Street predictions and have another record quarter based almost solely on the strength of iPhone sales.
As has been common for the past several quarters, Apple’s success will ride on the success of the iPhone. Um projects that Apple will sell 36.5 million iPhones in Q3, which will help drive the company’s revenue on the quarter to $38.2 billion, which is higher than the consensus estimate of $37.9 billion. If Apple does sell 36.5 million iPhones that would be a significant increase from last year’s Q3 results, when it sold 31.2 million iPhones.
Um thinks Apple is set for a strong quarter because of how much the iPhone’s availability has increased in the last quarter. Since the end of April, the iPhone has been made available on 16 more carriers and has been introduced to four new countries — Brunei, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, and Lebanon.
Um also attributes some of the iPhone’s growth to Apple’s recently improved marketing campaigns, which have included a number of well-received ads and the introduction of a buyback program for older iPhones.
As for Apple’s other products, Um predicts it will sell 12 million iPads, 3.9 million Macs, and 1.9 million iPods for the quarter. During the third quarter last year, Apple sold 14.6 million iPads, 3.8 million Macs, and 4.6 million iPods. This means that other than the iPhone, Um projects that Apple will post year-over-year sales declines in its major product lines.
