According to a new note by Rodman & Renshaw Equity Research, Apple could sell up to 15 million iPhones in the quarter ending in September, easily the company’s strongest quarter for iPhone sales.
Sales will be boosted by the upcoming iPhone “4G” or “HD,” the smartphone leaked last month by Gizmodo after it was left in a bar by an Apple developer.
Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar said the company will manufacture 12 million of the new iPhone HD for the September quarter, which combined with iPhone 3GS sales could lead to 15 million for the period.
For the fiscal year, Apple could sell 40 million iPhones, up from 18 million for the fiscal 2009.
Adds Kumar (via SFGate): “Apple is close to achieving peak market share with its existing lineup of wireless carriers. The only way to keep growing its iPhone business is to expand its relationships with other carriers and to become more carrier-agnostic.”
The new iPhone will have a front-facing camera for video conferencing, a better standard camera (including larger lens and flash), a Micro-SIM slot (just like the iPad), large 960×640 resolution, a second mic, metallic exterior (not plastic) and split side buttons for volume.
Result for: fiscal year
Ubisoft, the games publisher behind the new “always on” DRM, has disappointed investors this week, reporting an almost 18 percent slide in revenue for the fiscal year.
For the year, the company posted sales of $1.1 billion, and a net loss of $54 million.
The loss was mainly due to increases in R&D, which rose to $376 million, up 36 percent year-on-year.
Ubi says its top selling game was Assassin’s Creed II (which uses the controversial DRM) and moved 9 million units since launch.
Additionally, Ubi saw its market share in North America rise to 6.8 percent from 5.3 percent last fiscal year. Despite the growth, the overall market, which remains in turmoil, has not helped with ongoing sales, concedes CEO Yves Guillemot: “The global economic crisis had a pronounced impact on the video game industry in 2009, which contracted by nearly 10 per cent year-on-year. Ubisoft’s sales were hit particularly hard, falling 18 per cent over the full year despite a stabilisation in the second half of the year, when figures came in on a par with the corresponding period of 2008-09. This overall contraction in sales, combined with additional write-downs recorded for games already launched as well as for upcoming releases, led to a €60 million operating loss.”
Despite significant backlash for their DRM scheme, Guillemot sees a strong 2010-2011 fiscal year: “We forecast a return to profitable growth in 2010-11 with positive cash flow generation, driven by a games line-up that is more closely tailored to growth segments and based on strong franchises.We also expect to see the first concrete results from our investments in on-line games and services. Lastly, the upcoming launches of new consoles, including Natal and Sony Move, should enable us to capitalise on the technology investments that we have undertaken in recent years and re-energize the casual games segment. At the same time, we will continue to reorganize our studios and enhance our development teams’ productivity.”
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Result for: fiscal year
According to PlayStation University, the PlayStation 3 software attach rate is creeping in on the Xbox 360’s, threatening to kill off the old adage that games simply do not sell on the Sony console.
Despite a lower install base, software sales for the PS3 were significantly higher than that of the Xbox 360 in the fiscal 2009, 115.6 million to 103.1 million. The fiscal year runs from May until the end of April.
The new results put lifetime software sales at 290.5 million, still well below the 360’s 353.8 million, but catching up quickly.
At 35.7 million PS3 units sold, that puts the attach rate at 8.1. The 360 has 40.2 million lifetime sales, for an attach rate of 8.8.
Both those numbers are higher than the Nintendo Wii, with a 7.7 attach rate, despite much larger hardware and software sales. All three pale in comparison to the aging PS2, which has been out since 2000 and still has a remarkable 10.3 attach rate.
