Apple Earnings Preview: How Many New iPhones Were Sold in Sept.?

Apple will report the result of its September quarter later on this afternoon, including the first couple of weeks of iPhone 6 and iPhone Plus sales. Market watchers expect the company to report a revenue of around $40 billion for the three-month period.

Analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray sent out a note to investors on Monday summarizing Wall Street expectations for the quarter. Apple already provided guidance of around $37 billion and $40 billion n revenue for the September quarter, according to AppleInsider. Investors expect the company to report at least $40 billion for the quarter.

Munster does think it is unlikely that the company will report revenue ahead of the $40 billion at the high end of its guidance. In his opinion, if Apple sales were ahead of $40 billion, they would have revised guidance after the opening weekend of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales.

Apple revised its guidance last year following the launch of its iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c devices, pushing its gross margin guidance higher a month before earnings were reported.

For this year's iPhone sales, market watchers expect Apple to report sales of around 37 to 38 million units for the quarter, according to AppleInsider. This would represent a 10 percent year over year growth, lower than the 13 percent annual growth the company recorded in its June 2014 quarter.

Wall Street predicts iPad shipments of 12 million units, a 15 percent drop compared to 2013. Mac sales are expected to grow 1 percent to 4.6 million, while gross margin expectations are pegged at 37.5 percent.

In the December quarter, Munster expects Apple will report a revenue between $65 billion and $68 billion, with gross margins between 38 and 38.5 percent.

Wall Street expects that Apple's margins will see a bump from the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices.

Though Apple doesn't guide sales of products, Apple is expected to sell 60 million iPhone devices during the holiday quarter, which would be a new all-time record.