Conclusion. In the first week of January, average iPhone X supply inched up to 97% after a month of rapidly increasing availability for U.S. Apple in-store and online lead times in 8 countries improved from an average of 4 days to 3 days. We still believe iPhone X will reach global supply-demand equilibrium in the next week. This means the Mar-18 outlook will have a small bump up from December iPhone X demand getting pushed into the Mar-18 quarter. The bigger takeaway is that the Street is underestimating the positive ASP impact from the iPhone X over the next few quarters, which should be a long-term benefit to the Apple story. Our FY18 overall iPhone ASP is $740 vs. the Street at $705.
iPhone X effectively at full availability. As we have been tracking the iPhone X availability and lead times, we have also looked at lead times for the 8 Plus and 7 Plus for comparison. Currently, the lead times for the 8 Plus and 7 Plus are similar – longer in some countries, in fact – to the iPhone X, indicating that the X has reached full availability. Today, you can expect the same delivery date for an iPhone X as you would a 7 Plus. The X’s in-store availability is slightly lower than its older cousins, at 97% compared to 99% or 100% depending on the day, but we believe these 2 or 3 percentage points to be immaterial. With equal or better lead times compared to older models and the phone being essentially fully available in-store, the takeaway is that the iPhone X has effectively reached supply-demand equilibrium.
Apple Store availability at 97%, up from 96% the previous week and 75% the second week of December. We continued our daily monitoring of iPhone X availability, capturing 2224 daily in-store data points for 139 of the 271 U.S. We’re approaching 100% U.S. Apple in-store availability, compared to 25% a month ago. Specifically, availability at U.S. Apple Stores increased to an average of 97% for the week of Jan 1st-Jan 8th, which is only a 1% increase from Dec 25th-Jan 1st, but that’s after 75% for Dec 18th-Dec 25th and 44% the week of Dec 11th-Dec 17th. The first week of December had 25% availability.
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