iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Put $500 Stock Price in Sight

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) yesterday announced that its pre-orders of the iPhone 4S have topped one million in a single day, surpassing the previous single day pre-order record of 600,000 held by the iPhone 4. AT&T (NYSE:T) alone reported that it received more than 200,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4S in the first 12 hours on Friday. ^{[1] [2]}

The iPhone 4S carries a faster A5 dual core processor, a voice recognition system, better battery life and an improved camera with 1,080 pixels resolution for high definition video. While many analysts were hoping for a newly redesigned iPhone 5, the huge demand shows that the 4S clearly has enough exciting features to have customers still lining up in record numbers.

See our complete analysis for Apple stock here

At Half of its Value, iPhone Moves Apple Stock

Given that the iPhone accounts for more than 50% of our $510 price estimate for Apple stock, the iPhone 4S demand helped Apple shares rise by over 5% yesterday. We could see more volatility in its stock this week as more details emerge, but so far it looks like the iPhone 4S will surpass its predecessor. Apple sold about 1.7 million iPhone 4 units within the first three days of its launch and so the 4S will likely cross this mark. However we don’t think it’s exactly fair to compare the two models.

Apple has expanded the number of carriers in the US that sell the phone to include Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and Sprint (NYSE:S) in addition to AT&T, which originally was the only carrier that sold the iPhone 4. Also, Apple has added Australia and Canada to the list for those to receive the first iPhone 4S batch. So given this expanded reach, the iPhone 4S will need to exceed the 1.7 million mark by a fair margin in the first three days to really impress us.

Also the untimely death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ right after the 4S announcement could have some impact on iPhone sales as well. Given the huge public support of many of his admirers, we believe that many will look to buy the iPhone as a way to support Jobs’ legacy and final creation.

Understand How a Company’s Products Impact its Stock Price at Trefis

1. iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours, Apple Press Info, October 10th, 2011 [↩]
2. AT&T Says Preorders for Apple iPhone 4S Broke Sales Records, Bloomberg citing AT&T as the source, October 8th, 2011 [↩]