Morgan Stanley Predicts iPhone Sales to Grow 28% Year-over-year in Q3 2013

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Analyst Katy Huberty at Morgan Stanely is projecting iPhone sales of 34.5 Million this quarter. If her prediction is accurate it would mean an increase of 28% compared to the 26.9 million iPhones sold in the same quarter of 2012. She is basing her smartphone sales projections on web search data culled from the U.S., the UK, Germany, France, China and Japan. According to her research, this has been a leading indicator of consumer interest for new smartphones. Here's a quote from Huberty on her methodology,

"Our tracker includes Web search data through Sept 15, which incorporates the iPhone announcement on Sept 10 and the start of pre-orders on Sept 13. Our tracker includes the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, China and Japan, which are all countries launching the new iPhones this week. Our model projects demand for the rest of September assuming demand trends post last week's announcement follow a similar pattern as 2012."

What do you guys think? Between the cheaper iPhone 5C and the popularity of the new gold-colored iPhone 5S, her predictions could be right on the mark.

Source: Fortune