Presales of Apple's (AAPL 1.13%) long-awaited iPhone 12 vaulted out of the gate, according to noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International securities. Kuo reported that presales of the device during the first 24 hours were more than twice that of the previous model. There was also strong demand for the iPhone 12 Pro in China, all of which is great news for Apple shareholders.
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Jason Hall: Danny, tell us what you know.
Danny Vena: I know I should unmute myself before I start talking. iPhone pre-orders are up. There's an analyst by the name of Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities who has historically been a pretty good gauge of what's going on with iPhone sales when they are first released. He said that iPhone 12 models, they sold about 2 million during the first pre-orders. That's up from about 800,000 for the iPhone 11 during the same period last year.
Hall: But there's some important context about it, right?
Vena: Absolutely. What's happening is that since iPhone has issued so many, I mean, we've got four different iPhone models that will be coming out this year and there's only two of them that are currently available. That's actually pretty good news. The fact that maybe sales weren't as high as what analysts were expecting, but they are higher than last year. Also they're saying that the iPhone Pro model, which is also available, actually had stronger than expected demand, particularly out of China. Now, China is one of Apple's biggest markets for iPhones. The fact that the iPhone 12 Pro is seeing strong demand in China, and the fact that the basic model iPhone has sold more than the iPhone 11 last year, I think that's probably a good indicator of what we can expect. I think there's been a lot of pent-up demand for the 5G iPhone. I think a lot of folks that have been waiting to upgrade are probably going to make that upgrade at some point over the next year. I did see one analyst from Wedbush, I think it was, who said that he thinks that somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 million, of about 900 million iPhones out in the field could potentially upgrade at some point over the next year. So it's important to keep that in mind.
Hall: It's massive potential, right? The idea of this is a super cycle is out there. But it's interesting to see if it really plays out. Right, Danny?
Vena: It's all theory at this point. A lot of it is gamesmanship on the part of the analysts. They are trying to come up with their best guesses. It's important to remember that that's all they are. It's their best guesses. But that said, iPhone is a perennial favorite. The fact that they've come out with some new camera technology on the iPhone Pro 12 or the iPhone 12 Pro, and the fact that they've got 5G across the range of models. I think that there is potential for the super-cycle that they've been talking about for years. If that comes to fruition, that's good news for Apple and good news for Apple shareholders.
