Anything Less Than 5M New iPhone Sales Will be Disappointing for Apple (AAPL) This Weekend

While Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has been mum on how many iPhone Sc and 5s units it will sell in the first weekend of availability, some Wall Street types have aimed to take a stab at it.

BTIG's Walter Piecyk is modeling sales of six million new iPhone units in the first weekend, which includes both models. Unlike previous years, Apple's launch will include China and an addressable market of 2 billion wireless subscribers, versus 670 million to 770 million during previous launches.

As a cautionary measure, Piecyk comments, While we do not take the challenges of execution lightly, if Apple cannot grow its supply to handle this demand like it has for the past two years we have to wonder why CEO Tim Cook bothered to add China into the initial launch in the first place. Nevertheless, we will maintain a supply constrained first weekend estimate of 6.0 million iPhones sold but let’s be honest, that should be easy lifting. We will also maintain our estimate for 30 million iPhones sold in the September until after we have a better idea on supply...

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster sees a similar level, looking for five to six million units over the weekend. He commented, While the 5-6 million range may be viewed by some as a disappointment given that it will include China as a launch country for the first time, we believe our survey work suggests that demand is healthy, but slightly below where demand was for the iPhone 5 was last year, which included a new form factor.

Getting bullish is Citi's Glen Yeung. The analyst is looking for 7.75 million iPhone units to be sold, with the iPhone 5c accounting for 4.5 million units.

Apple's latest iPhones will go on sale on its website at 12:01am PDT and at 8:00am local time at its stores. Shares of Apple are up 1.8 percent.

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