iPhone Suppliers TSMC and Foxconn Report Strong November Revenue

[tromboneaholic]

The installed user base is the interesting number, and it's the one I can't find a definitive answer.

Also, keep in mind the Mixpanel data includes phones that are activated, so there are a few that might have been sold but will be given as gifts on or around Christmas. Granted, it's probably not a huge percentage....

 

[ftaok]

The installed user base is the interesting number, and it's the one I can't find a definitive answer.

Also, keep in mind the Mixpanel data is phones that are activated, so there are a few that might have been sold but will be given as gifts on or around Christmas. Granted, it's probably not a huge percentage....

Absolutely. I thought about this and I didn't adjust my numbers because ....

1. I'm lazy.

2. I figure that sales towards the very end of the month will slow down.

So in my mind, they cancel each other out.

As for the installed base figure, yes, I agree that it's very interesting. That number varies depending on where you look. I'm not sure if there are any reliable data for installed base that is publicly available. I'm sure the Wall Street bankers would consider that proprietary.

 

[tromboneaholic]

Absolutely. I thought about this and I didn't adjust my numbers because ....

1. I'm lazy.

2. I figure that sales towards the very end of the month will slow down.

So in my mind, they cancel each other out.

As for the installed base figure, yes, I agree that it's very interesting. That number varies depending on where you look. I'm not sure if there are any reliable data for installed base that is publicly available. I'm sure the Wall Street bankers would consider that proprietary.

Apple has said the will start disclosing their active user base as part of their quarterly reports, but I'm assuming they will be talking about the 1.3 billion total active base and not break it down between devices.

 

[ksec]

The 20million number comes from the Mixpanel data for Xs Max. The article states that the Max represents 2.81% of the installed user base. I think trombone used 715,000,000 as the estimated user base (I've seen that number from an analytical firm back in early 2017). 2.81% of 715million is roughly 20million Max units.


I use the Mixpanel data differently and come up with the following.

I'm using 675,000,000 as the estimated installed user base. Source - https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-installed-base-iphone-8-stopped-growing-2017-7

Xs - 2.26% of installed base
Max - 2.81%
Xr - 1.66%

This would imply unit sales of ...

Xs - 15 million
Max - 19 million
Xr - 11 million

Total - 45 million, through Dec 10th.

There's approximately 90 days in a quarter. Dec 10th is approximately day 70. So I factor in 1.28 for the days remaining in the year. The totals are now.

Xs - 19 million
Max - 24 million
Xr - 14 million
Total - 57 million

Here's where we get dicey. What percentage of new phones sold are the older ones?

I can use 80-20 or 70-30.

80-20 mix - 71.2 million iPhones
70-30 mix - 81.4 million iPhones

The last 2 Christmas quarters, Apple sold around 79 million both times. At an 80-20 mix, Apple disappoints dramatically. At the 70-30 mix, it's an all-time record.

Here's where more insight/data is required. Knowing the new sales of the older models would be very helpful in determining the "mix". The methodology I used locks in the unit sales of the new models, so the lower the mix, the more total unit sales.

Anyway, this is what I could put together in ten minutes. If I had more time, I could do a little more googling to see if there are indicators of 7/8 sales.

EDIT - usually around this time of year, CIRP releases a chart showing the breakdown of new iPhone sales by model (for US). Typically for the Dec quarter, the breakdown of the new models vs. the old models is between 60/40 to 70/30. I think the last time the mix was in the 80/20 range was in 2014 with the 6/6+.

Opinion - I think Apple will be fine with unit sales.

Your base number is way too low. It should now be close to 900M iPhone user, or even 1 billion by this quarter.

There are 1.3B Active Devices at the start of 2018. That is 270M iPad user, ( likely more ), ~90M Mac, and no more than 90M iPod touch, Apple TV, Apple Watch combined. That is 850M iPhone user at the start of this year, I would not be surprise if they have add 100M new user since then. And very likely reach 1.5B active devices by the time they next report their financials.

 

[tromboneaholic]

Your base number is way too low. It should now be close to 900M iPhone user, or even 1 billion by this quarter.

There are 1.3B Active Devices at the start of 2018. That is 270M iPad user, ( likely more ), ~90M Mac, and no more than 90M iPod touch, Apple TV, Apple Watch combined. That is 850M iPhone user at the start of this year, I would not be surprise if they have add 100M new user since then. And very likely reach 1.5B active devices by the time they next report their financials.

Actually, Apple just announce 100 million Macs in October.

 

[ftaok]

Your base number is way too low. It should now be close to 900M iPhone user, or even 1 billion by this quarter.

There are 1.3B Active Devices at the start of 2018. That is 270M iPad user, ( likely more ), ~90M Mac, and no more than 90M iPod touch, Apple TV, Apple Watch combined. That is 850M iPhone user at the start of this year, I would not be surprise if they have add 100M new user since then. And very likely reach 1.5B active devices by the time they next report their financials.

If you use 900 million as the iPhone user base, and take the mpixel data as gospel, and use the 1.28 factor, you end up with 77 million new model iPhones (xs, max,and xr). With that many, I would think the mix would skew towards 80/20. That implies a total of 97 million iPhones sold for the current quarter.

I don't think that's realistic at all.

So either the user base number is too high, or the mpixel data is inaccurate, or both.

Bottom line, I think they'll end up selling around the same number of iPhones as they have the last several years.

 

[Carnegie]

If you use 900 million as the iPhone user base, and take the mpixel data as gospel, and use the 1.28 factor, you end up with 77 million new model iPhones (xs, max,and xr). With that many, I would think the mix would skew towards 80/20. That implies a total of 97 million iPhones sold for the current quarter.

I don't think that's realistic at all.

So either the user base number is too high, or the mpixel data is inaccurate, or both.

Bottom line, I think they'll end up selling around the same number of iPhones as they have the last several years.

Do you know how the mpixel data is arrived at? For instance, is it just a measure of how many (i.e. what portion of) tracked users were using a given model? Or does it somehow try to account for differing usage trends between different models? If the former, I think the percentage for iPhone Xs Max would skew high because those with that model are likely to be using it more (in ways that could be tracked) than those with much older models.

Also, I don't see where you tried to account for the reality that some of the iPhone Xs and Xs Max models which are now in use were sold in the September quarter. Did I miss that, or are your numbers assuming they are all December quarter sales?

 

[tromboneaholic]

I'm using 675,000,000 as the estimated installed user base.

Your base number is way too low. It should now be close to 900M iPhone user, or even 1 billion by this quarter.

Just to add to the confusion, a MarketWatch article in November claimed a "750+ million active iPhone installed base."

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wedbush-slashes-apple-price-target-2018-11-28

 

[ftaok]

Do you know how the mpixel data is arrived at? For instance, is it just a measure of how many (i.e. what portion of) tracked users were using a given model? Or does it somehow try to account for differing usage trends between different models? If the former, I think the percentage for iPhone Xs Max would skew high because those with that model are likely to be using it more (in ways that could be tracked) than those with much older models.

All fair points. I have no idea how the mpixel data was gathered. I didn't read all that deep into it. Like I said, I'm lazy. I just used the data to get a rough idea of how iPhones are selling this quarter.

Also, I don't see where you tried to account for the reality that some of the iPhone Xs and Xs Max models which are now in use were sold in the September quarter. Did I miss that, or are your numbers assuming they are all December quarter sales?

Yes, once again, my laziness factors in. I had forgotten that the Xs and Max were made available in late september. A quick wiki check shows that the US and a few other countries got the Xs on 21-Sep. That's about 9 days attributed to the previous quarter. Let's say they sold 10 million Xs/Max in the previous quarter (going by previous launches).

So depending on what you want to use as the installed user base, that's going to effect the end result.

Let's use the 750 million that trombone linked above (I didn't read the article yet).

750,000,000 * 6.73% = 50,475,000 new model iPhones through Dec-10.

50,475,000 * 1.28 factor = 64,608,000 new model iPhones through Dec-31.

64,608,000 - 10,000,000 = 54,608,000 new model iPhones sold in Dec quarter.

70/30 mix ---> 78 million total iPhones
80/20 mix ---> 68 million total iPhones

80/20 mix would lead to a huge disappointment. 70/30 mix would lead to flat sales compared to the last two Dec quarters (and would be a huge upside joy).

Most reports are saying that Apple is selling a ton of iPhone 8/8+ models (like in Japan). Perhaps that pushes the ratio down to 70/30 or lower.

Keep in mind, that the lower the mix, the lower the ASP.

EDIT - I just noticed that I've been using mpixel when it should be Mixpanel. Oh well.

 

[cableguy84]

No surprises here then

 

[Elyzien]

So much for the talk that Apple has peaked and sales are shrinking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It is not the sales fault! It was really cold water!

 

[ksec]

Actually, Apple just announce 100 million Macs in October.

View attachment 810312

That is in October, ~90M were the start of 2018.

If you use 900 million as the iPhone user base, and take the mpixel data as gospel, and use the 1.28 factor, you end up with 77 million new model iPhones (xs, max,and xr). With that many, I would think the mix would skew towards 80/20. That implies a total of 97 million iPhones sold for the current quarter.

I don't think that's realistic at all.

So either the user base number is too high, or the mpixel data is inaccurate, or both.

Bottom line, I think they'll end up selling around the same number of iPhones as they have the last several years.

1.28 Factor assumes they are selling as much as when it first launch, and the trend from all previous has show it is not true and starts levelling off, even in Christmas period. If we assume the % stays the same at the end of December on a 1B base ( Smaller % at larger base.. just roughly cancels out ), that is roughly 69M for Xr / Xs, 1% increase of iPhone 8 usage is 10M, plus 5M some others. That is 85M, if the base only reach 900M at the end of December, that is 76.5M. Both numbers aren't bad. Revenues should hit record though due to Max further pushing prices up.

But it is all rough estimate.

Do you know how the mpixel data is arrived at? For instance, is it just a measure of how many (i.e. what portion of) tracked users were using a given model? Or does it somehow try to account for differing usage trends between different models? If the former, I think the percentage for iPhone Xs Max would skew high because those with that model are likely to be using it more (in ways that could be tracked) than those with much older models.

Also, I don't see where you tried to account for the reality that some of the iPhone Xs and Xs Max models which are now in use were sold in the September quarter. Did I miss that, or are your numbers assuming they are all December quarter sales?

Mixpanel gets its data from its user using its product and mostly from a Western perspective so it pretty much ignores Japan and China. You just assume that is a rough estimate of global trends. Which in the past has been pretty accurate.

Just to add to the confusion, a MarketWatch article in November claimed a "750+ million active iPhone installed base."

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wedbush-slashes-apple-price-target-2018-11-28

750M+ is based on the idea of factual numbers, that is why they had + sign after it. 1.3Billion Active Devices at the start of 2018. And as of October, 350M iPad sold in total since launch, 45M Apple Watch Sold since launch, 55M Apple TV sold since launch. 100M Mac Active Devices. That is a guarantee 750M iPhone users. It ignores that since 1.3B number given out, 150M+ iPhones has been sold, not all Apple TV, Apple Watch, and more importantly iPad are still active.

 

[ftaok]

1.28 Factor assumes they are selling as much as when it first launch, and the trend from all previous has show it is not true and starts levelling off, even in Christmas period. If we assume the % stays the same at the end of December on a 1B base ( Smaller % at larger base.. just roughly cancels out ), that is roughly 69M for Xr / Xs, 1% increase of iPhone 8 usage is 10M, plus 5M some others. That is 85M, if the base only reach 900M at the end of December, that is 76.5M. Both numbers aren't bad. Revenues should hit record though due to Max further pushing prices up.

But it is all rough estimate.

in a later post I realized that the Xs/Max were available in the previous quarter for about 10 days. So I factored out 10 million units. I also revised the user base to the 750mil that trombone posted. Used the same 1.28 factor and a 70/30 mix.

Comes out to be about 78 million units.

And yes, I do agree that it's just a rough estimate. I don't do this for a living. Just a fun thought exercise.[/QUOTE]