“For most of 2017, Apple stock moved steadily higher. However, the iPhone maker stumbled in the last week of the year, due to several reports suggesting that demand for the new iPhone X isn’t living up to expectations,” Adam Levine-Weinberg writes for The Motley Fool. “The doom-and-gloom claims that captured a lot of media attention last week are almost certainly inaccurate.”
“Last Monday, Taiwan’s Economic Daily News spoiled Apple shareholders’ Christmas by reporting that the company had cut its iPhone X sales forecast for the upcoming quarter by a stunning 40%. The new forecast is 30 million, down from 50 million, according to the report. At least two other Asia-based analysts also reduced their iPhone X shipment estimates recently,” Levine-Weinberg writes. “Other analysts have cast doubt on these bearish reports. The week before Christmas, prominent analyst Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley named Apple her top pick for 2018, based on rising demand for the iPhone X in China. Meanwhile, Jun Zhang of Rosenblatt Securities stated that the Taiwanese media reports may have erroneously referred to the iPhone X, and that the cuts actually related to the cheaper iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus models.”
“The most widely covered report — the one stating that Apple had cut its iPhone X sales forecast from 50 million to 30 million — is particularly suspicious. To be quite blunt, the idea that Apple might sell 50 million iPhone X units next quarter is highly implausible,” Levine-Weinberg writes. “This in turn suggests that the sources for this report aren’t reliable.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: AAPL shorts: “Apple has cut iPhone X production by eleventy gajillion units!!!”
Anyone who sells their stock base on a single poorly-sources report from Economic Daily News, shouldn’t be playing the stock market.
Profit from the painfully gullible. — MacDailyNews, December 26, 2017
Even if a particular data point were factual it would be impossible to accurately interpret the data point as to what it meant for our overall business… There is just an inordinate[ly] long list of things that would make any single data point not a great proxy for what’s going on. Apple CEO Tim Cook, January 23, 2013
SEE ALSO:
Apple stock tumbles on one poorly-sourced report of low iPhone X demand – December 26, 2017
Apple and suppliers shares drop on report of weak iPhone X demand – December 26, 2017
the introduction of the carrier agnostic unlocked iPhone X in late December completely changed the supply chain game… blah blah single data point.
When a lot of people buy directly from Apple, supply chain data becomes increasingly unreliable.
None of us, and certainly not the analysts, have any reliable information about how iPhones are selling or what the mix of models might be, but Apple’s last financial report gave very strong guidance for this quarter and they haven’t made any retractions about that, so I assume that they stand by their predictions.
It certainly looks a though Apple is selling more iPhones than before and many of those iPhones are being sold at price points considerably higher than last year, so it has to be excellent news for Apple irrespective of what the mix of models turns out to be.
Every year at this time we read scare stories about diminishing iPhone demand and each year Apple’s financial report shows those those reports to have been wrong, but people are still able to generate similar misleading headlines every year.