TF Securities’ analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is today forecasting that Apple will sell about 10% more iPhones in the first quarter of 2020, due to strong replacement demand for iPhone 11 and the launch of the “iPhone SE 2” starting in the same period.
In terms of the calendar holiday quarter, Kuo expects shipments of 70-75 million new iPhone units (iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro combined), which could have been higher if not for supply constraints.
Echoing other reports, Kuo also believes that Apple has increased orders at some of its suppliers in the wake of stronger demand for its new phones. The increase in shipments will mainly be sold in the Q1 2020 timeframe.
More specifically, the analyst expects Apple to ship around 40 million units of iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max before the start of the new year. This number is lower than the 43 million iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices sold Kuo believes Apple sold in the same quarters last year, partly due to supply constraints in the channel (citing two-three week shipping delays) of the 11 Pro phones.
However, Kuo believes that the cheaper iPhone 11 line will handily beat the iPhone XR’s performance for 2018. Kuo sees between 37-40 million unit shipments for the iPhone 11, compared to 25 million for iPhone XR in the equivalent time period last year. One contributing factor is better customer demand due to lower entry prices, but also remember that the iPhone XR did not go on sale until late October in 2018, so the iPhone 11 will naturally have an extra month of sales under its belt.
Kuo obviously expects the iPhone SE 2 device to go on sale in early 2020, such that it will be a component of predicted quarterly sales growth. In a previous report, Kuo said that the new iPhone SE 2 will resemble an iPhone 8 in external design but feature upgraded internals like an A13 processor.
