Preposterous iPhone 5 Sales Forecasts

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By Trey Thoelcke Published
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The launch of the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 5 began in Asia and has moved toward the United States, where it will be available for sale today. The evaluations of the effects of its sales and the level of sales are preposterous. Some experts still hold that sales will make a significant addition to fourth-quarter gross domestic product. However, they do not know what the profit margin is on the smartphone or what the costs are for carriers to sell it.

Another set of forecasts that are improbable is that Apple will sell as many as 20 million iPhone 5 units over the weekend, which begins today. However, several carriers and Apple itself are out of the handsets. How can something that is not available be sold. According to Barron’s, one analyst was particularly aggressive:

Sterne Agee Analyst Shaw Wu predicts: “Apple will likely ship 27 million iPhones for the September quarter, up from our recently raised view of 26 million.”

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.

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