What you need to know
- Kuo expects a 10% YOY iPhone sales increase for Q1 2020.
- Strong iPhone 11 sales will help.
- The arrival of iPhone SE2 is also slated to increase sales.
Ming-Chi Kuo of TF Securities has shared a new forecast for iPhone sales during Q1 of 2020, according to 9to5Mac. That forecast has iPhone sales increasing 10% year-over-year thanks to strong demand for iPhone 11. Kuo believes the unannounced iPhone SE2 will also play a part.
The analyst clearly expects iPhone SE2 to arrive in the first quarter of 2020 in order to count it in this new forecast. The launch of the new phone, combined with strong demand for iPhone 11, may be enough to see the increase Kuo expects.
Breaking things down, the forecast has Apple shipping around 40 million iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max units before the end of this year. That's around three million fewer than iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max during the same period last year, something Kuo puts down to supply constraints. However, iPhone 11 is believed to be performing more strongly than iPhone XR, making up the difference and then some.
It's important to remember that iPhone XR didn't launch intil October 2018, giving iPhone 11 a leg up purely because it will have been on sale an extra few weeks.
The biggest story here may be the belief that iPhone SE2 will be part of this equation. There have been ongoing rumors of its arrival for months. The latest of which has the device looking similar to an iPhone 8, rather than the smaller iPhone 5 form factor so many people continue to enjoy.
