A prominent industry analyst believes sales of Apple’s wildly popular iPhone will remain on track despite a massive surge in Android activations.
According to Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, while Android activations may be significantly outpacing iOS at a whopping total of 550,000 per day, the impressive surge should be viewed as representative of a “larger trend” in smartphone growth which will also benefit Apple.
As such, Munster said he remains comfortable with his original projection of 16 million iPhone units sold in the June quarter, along with the activation of 29 million iOS-powered devices, like the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
“Apple’s numbers are deceivingly low given the shift in timing of the iPhone upgrade,” Munster wrote in a note to investors obtained by AppleInsider.
“We believe iOS devices would have been up ~20% (quarter over quarter) if iPhone 5 had shipped in June.”
Munster also noted that Android is available on multiple devices in various configurations from a number of manufacturers, whereas the iOS lineup is somewhat limited by Apple – making direct sales comparisons unfair.
However, the analyst said he expects to see a “huge spike” in iPhone sales this September quarter – totaling at least 21 million – when Cupertino debuts its fifth-gen iPhone sometime in 2011.
