Expectations for the iPhone on Wall Street are high, as hardly a day goes by without another sign that Tim Cook made the right call when he decided to go after the oversized phone market that Samsung once owned.
On Wednesday, for example, Counterpoint Research reported that Apple’s market share in November grew to 12% in China, 51% in Japan and 33% in Korea — Samsung’s home turf.
“No foreign brand has gone beyond the 20% market share mark in the history of Korea’s smartphone industry,” said Counterpoint’s Tom Kang in the company blog.
The numbers coming from Coins2Day’s panel of Apple analysts — 18 professionals and 12 amateurs — have been moving up. On Tuesday, for example, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty told clients she now expects iPhone shipments of 67-69 million, well above her model of 62 million — which remains unchanged, higher only than Gene Munster’s 61 million.
On the other end of the bell curve, half a dozen analysts have iPhone estimates of 70 million or higher, led by Kirk Burgess of the independent Braeburn Group at 71.5 million.
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We’ll find out who was closest to the mark when Apple reports its fiscal Q1 2015 earnings after the markets close on Tuesday Jan. 27.
Below: The individual analyst’s Q4 estimates — pros in blue, indies in green. Thanks as always to Posts at Eventide‘s Robert Paul Leitao for pulling together the Braeburn Group numbers.
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple AAPL coverage at coins2day.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.
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