Q4 2013 could have been the iPhone’s best quarter

Morgan Stanley analyst, Katy Huberty predicts that 54-55 million iPhones have been sold in Q4 2013. If this is the case, then the iPhone could have very well had a record quarter.

The consensus on Wall Street is that Apple was able to move 53 million units of their popular smartphone; a slightly lower, but still overwhelmingly impressive number.

Q4 sales for electronics and smartphones are notoriously profitable for manufacturers due to the Holiday season. So it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise when it dips below the 55 million mark significantly in Q1 2014.

What are the predictions for 2014? Huberty sees 45 million iPhones sold through the end of March, and then 35 million until the end of June. This is only because iPhone buyers typically hold off on a new purchase in anticipation of the latest iPhone’s release. In this case, the iPhone 6. But the latest smartphone from Apple isn’t the only thing that the Cupertino-based tech giant has up their sleeve.

Huberty believes that there will be other services and products from Apple to look out for:

“We believe Apple is likely to launch new Internet-based services this year, including the potential for a mobile payments platform as early as the developer conference in June, in our view. Most importantly, we believe Apple will start to monetize services on top of the many assets they have, such as iBeacon, fingerprint sensor, 575M+ credit card accounts, and homogeneous iOS installed base. iWatch or a larger iPad form factor would also push consensus estimates higher.”

The Morgan Stanley analyst also predicts that Apple’s revenue could soar as high as $58 billion. We’ll know for sure on the 27th of this month, when Apple will release their latest quarterly results.

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