Analyst Predicts 8 Million iPhone 5 Sales Due To Longer Apple Store Lines

According to AppleInsider, analyst Gene Munster and the Piper Jaffray team scouted out Apple Store lines at three major U.S. locations this morning. The New York, Boston, and Minneapolis locations had an average of 83 percent longer lines than what the 4S had created. That has led Munster to believe that Apple will sell 8 million units; double the four million the iPhone 4S sold.

Here’s how Apple’s popular New York location fared:

Piper Jaffray’s team counted 775 customers in line for the iPhone 5 on Friday at Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store, a 70 percent increase from last year for the iPhone 4S debut

During the pre-order stage alone Apple announced that 2 million units sold within the first 24 hours. If lines are over 80 percent longer and pre-orders were beyond expectations, Apple shouldn’t have an issue at all selling 7 to 8 million units this weekend.

Munster even cast his estimate for the December quarter with a massive 49 million unit sales estimate for the Cupertino giant. This is the largest estimate from all analysts this year thus far.

As for the opening weekend sales, Apple generally releases the official number on the Monday following the weekend. A bulk of the analysts have estimated 5 to 6 million sales. I’ve personally said that 6.5 million units is my prediction for the iPhone 5 opening weekend.

What do you think about Munster’s estimate; to high, to low?

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