Apple projects another IPhone-fueled record for holidays

13:26, 21 October 2014

NEW YORK. KAZINFORM Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s chief executive officer yesterday forecast a record holiday sales quarter, fueled by new bigger-screen iPhones, refreshed and slimmer iPads and the introduction of the Apple Pay mobile-payments service. It would be the fourth straight year that Cook, who became CEO in 2011, will have overseen a record end-of-year period.

Cook has increasingly honed all of the elements for a strong holiday quarter, stacking them in Apple's favor. He has moved most of the company's product debuts toward the end of the year, shifting away from some gadget introductions that used to happen in the spring. Starting with the iPhone 4s and the iPad mini in 2011 and 2012, Apple began introducing products before the shopping season. This year, he unveiled the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as well as Apple Pay, in September, followed by an event this month to show off new iPads and Macintosh computers, Bloomberg reports.

"There's absolutely no coincidence that it's happening at this time of the year," Rhoda Alexander, an analyst at IHS Inc., said in an interview. "They really shifted most of their product introductions to happen in the second half of the year." The Cupertino, California-based company said in a statement yesterday that revenue in the current period will be $63.5 billion to $66.5 billion, just topping the $63.5 billion estimated on average by analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That would exceed Apple's holiday sales of $57.6 billion for the end of 2013.

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