Apple announced sales of over 13mn of the newly announced iPhone 6s and 6s Plus in the three days since launch on Sept. 25 in 12 countries.
We are encouraged by the strong iPhone 6s sales, which are 30% above the 3-day sales of the iPhone 6 (10mn). First weekend sales are largely driven by upgrades (as opposed to new users), and thus highly correlated to growth in the installed base, which we estimate is up around 30% yoy, and should remain a powerful tailwind throughout the 6s product cycle.
Apple is also launching the iPhone 6s faster in international markets (130 countries by year-end for the 6s vs. 115 for the 6). We expect the faster international roll-out to provide an additional tailwind to the iPhone?s sales in the Dec- 15 quarter. All in, we continue to expect that iPhone sales can grow yoy despite market concerns to the contrary
