On January 27th, after the markets close, Apple is going to announce its fiscal Q1 2014 results. Analysts have already started predicting what the figures are going to be, Fortune collected data from 44 analysts, all of them estimate that at the very least Apple was able to sell 50 million iPhones in the previous quarter. Predictions obtained from 27 professional and 17 independent analysts reach a consensus on 55.3 million iPhone units, which results in a 16 percent growth in unit sales as opposed to the same quarter from a year ago.
Apple may have been aided by the popularity of its two new iPhones, the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. Both smartphones were widely available in the previous quarter, not to mention the fact that the holiday season also came in between, which is usually a time when sales experience a significant boost. Scott Craig of Merrill Lynch is actually the most bullish of all the professional analysts, he predicts that Apple might have sold as many as 58.5 million iPhones, whereas Andy Hargreaves of Pacific Crest plugs the end with a prediction of 50.93 million units. It will be interesting to compare these figures with units sales from the current quarter, when it ends in a couple of months, as in this quarter Apple has finally begun selling its iPhones on the world’s largest mobile carrier, China Mobile. Even the pre-orders are said to be in multi-millions.
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