Wall Street expects near-record iPhone sales despite delay, shut Apple stores

Wall Street is still expecting a near-record sales quarter for the Cupertino, California company's signature device when it reports fiscal first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, with estimates of $59.8 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv as of January 26. If Apple beats the number, it could eclipse its all-time record of $61.58 billion in iPhone sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2018.Analyst largely attribute the boost to the timing of the iPhone 12 lineup, which had a new look, 5G cellular data connectivity and new models at the top and bottom of the sizing range."They have an extremely good understanding of what their refresh cycle looks like and when waves are possible and whey they are not," said Ben Bajarin, head of consumer technologies at Creative Strategies. "Every bit of data across China and Europe has shown that not only was the installed base getting older, but people were not refreshing. I think (Apple) knew it would be heavy refresh cycle."