iPhone may have accounted for 50% of U.S. smartphone activations last quarter
Next week Apple will release its earnings from the 2014 holiday quarter and, per usual, the key figure analysts will be honing in on will be iPhone sales. By all accounts, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus release has been a sweeping success. On Wall Street, most analysts are anticipating iPhone sales to check in somewhere between 65 million and 71 million units. By way of comparison, during Apple's 2013 holiday quarter, the company sold 51 million iPhones. In other words, Apple next week may very well announce earth shattering and record breaking iPhone sales.
Highlighting the strength of Apple's two new iPhone models, CIRP research today issued a report indicating that the iPhone accounted for 50% of all smartphone activations during the December quarter.
CIRP's report reads in part:
The strength of the September 2014 launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus fueled Apple's dominance in US mobile phone sales this quarter," said Josh Lowitz, Partner and CoFounder of CIRP. "Apple had virtually double the sales of Samsung, and five times that of LG. No other brand accounted for as much as 5% of US sales. The Amazon Fire and Blackberry smartphones registered slight share, which we attribute to random sample fluctuation as much as actual sales."
Previous reports from other research firms have also pointed to exceptionally strong iPhone sales for the quarter. We'll know the full landscape of Apple's most recent financial quarter next Tuesday when the earnings report will be released. Make sure to stick around TUAW as we'll also be providing a liveblog of the accompanying earnings conference call.
