So, here an interesting takeaway from today’s Apple (AAPL) iPhone OS 4.0 event that you may have missed.
At the event, CEO Steve Jobs noted that iPhone sales to date now tops 50 million units. Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt points out in a research note that as of the end of December, sales to date were 41.8 million. Ergo, the company sold at least 8.2 million in the March quarter, he concludes.
Update: Several comments suggested that McCourt’s numbers were off, so I did some checking; it appears that the actual number sold through December was 42.482 million, which would put the number for the current quarter at at a little over 7.5 million.
McCourt notes that his previous estimate was 6.5 million iPhones in the quarter, a forecast he now says was clearly “way too low given the sales update data.” (Update: McCourt’s old number would still be too low.)
On other matters, McCourt writes that many of the iPhone OS updates “simply gets the iPhone to parity in terms of performance with other mobile OS on the market.”
But he adds that they “clearly make iPhone even more competitive,” and that the Game Center and iAd platforms Apple disclosed today “look extremely unique for the time being.”
Earlier today, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote in a research note that recent ComScore data makes him more confident in his forecast that the company sold 7.5 million iPhones in the quarter; with the update today from Jobs, his forecast now looks to low.
(Update: It now looks like Munster’s number is right on target.)
Meanwhile, Standard & Poor’s analyst Angelo Zino this afternoon repeated his Buy rating on Apple (AAPL) after today’s event. “We positively view the addition of multi-tasking, which will allow users to run third-party apps at the same time and/or in the background with AAPL’s apps,” he writes. “We are also encouraged by updated iPad figures, with 450K units and 3.5M apps downloaded to date.”
Apple today fell 65 cents, to $239.95.
Update 2: I received a response from McCourt early this morning. McCourt concedes his number may have been off for last year’s iPhone total, but sticks by his assertion the numbers point to iPhone upside:
The combined 85mm ipod touch/iphone number given would still seem to suggest over 8 million iPhones in March quarter. They had 72mm combined at the end of dec., so that would mean at least 13mm in March quarter. iPad Touch sales in Dec. were roughly 6 million. Assuming they must be down at least 1 million coming off of a holiday quarter, that would suggest at least 8 million iPhones.
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