“Research In Motion Ltd., Palm Inc., Nokia Corp. and Apple Inc. all saw their shares take a hit Monday, retreating following a research report that showed a dramatic slowdown in the sales growth of so-called smartphones,” Dan Gallagher reports for MarketWatch.
“The term smartphone refers to devices, such as the BlackBerry, the iPhone and the Palm Treo, designed to handle email, Web surfing and organization tasks as well as phone calls and text messages. Such devices have been the fastest-growing segment of the wireless device market, thanks to growing demand for mobile computing products.
A report from market research firm Gartner Inc. found that sales of smartphones grew nearly 16% globally during the second quarter. While strong, that represented a sharp drop from the 55% growth rate in the same period last year,” Gallagher reports.
MacDailyNews Take: If those other things are “smartphones,” then Apple’s iPhone really needs a new category for itself. “Geniusphone,” perhaps?
Gallagher continues, “‘The current economic environment continues to negatively impact the market, limiting consumer spending and replacement purchases in general,’ wrote Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner, in the report.”
“Shares of Apple traded down nearly 4%… The report found that the company’s share of smartphone sales fell during the second quarter as it cleaned out inventories ahead of the 3G iPhone, which went on sale in July. The company’s sales are expected to increase ‘dramatically’ in the second half of the year amid strong demand for the new device, the report predicted,” Gallagher reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
So why did Apple shares fall today if their “slowdown” was directly attributable to the iPhone transition and iPhone 3G sales are expected to increase “dramatically?’ There seems to be quite a disconnect here. Could it not be that smartphone sales took an understandable break as consumers waited for Apple’s iPhone 3G and not, as Gartner says, due to the “current economic environment.” After all, as evidenced by iPhone 3G lines that continued out the door and unabated for weeks, the “current economic environment” did not negatively affect smartphone sales, as long as they were iPhones, that is. Plenty of people – multiple millions, in fact – seemed to have at least, if not more than, enough cash for iPhones. Logic, Gartner, logic. Give it a try sometime.
The reason “smartphones” sales went into the toilet is because the smart smartphone buyers were waiting for and then buying Apple’s iPhone 3G, eschewing the antiquated devices offered up by the Palms, Nokias, RIMs, etc. of the world.
On other words: bloodbath. Even Wall Street will figure it out eventually.
These so called “financial advisors” are so stupid, for the lack of better word…. and the investors that buy in to these financial advisors are even more stupid. Blind leading the blind. They have to do more research before opening their mouths.
MDN is right on. The slowdown was directly related to the market waiting for the iPhone G3. The dam-burst of sales after its introduction makes this obvious. It’s one thing to gather numbers, it’s a whole different thing to analyze them. This seems like a misread by some, and definitely an overreaction on the stock price as far as Apple goes.
it is so much easier to make money as a stock goes down because you can sell a stock you do not own
it is called naked short selling
look it up it is a legal way for big firms to print money …..
as George Carlin used to say ” they made the sh*t ” up ”
it is not real just a one sided game
I thought it was b/c of Shaw Wu’s comments last week (again, negatively affecting the stock…)
I think Gartner is simply attempting to manipulate Apple’s stock, if brought it low, right before the 9th when it will go up.
It could happen!
No, they are not stupid, they are too smart and manipulative. They already sold their shares of Apple, make million of dollars in profit.
Now, it’s time to manipulate the market and scared off all the small investor into selling their shares. And guess what, when the stocks hit low, enough, it’s time to buy back all those APPL shares and make more money.
MDN Magic Word: need – more money to buy more shares
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More Stock manipulation going on, that’s all. Sell high, buy low.
Gartner = part of Microsfot Mafia…
so no surprises.
Did I hear you say Bloodbath???? Time for one then!
MDN word: intelligent as in…
“There are smartph0nez (for dumb@zzes), and there’s the intelligent phone – the iPhone. the intelligent Phone for the rest of us.”
my .02.
Pick up on this! Pick up on this!
Apple ran out of iPhones during the 2nd Quarter, remember? Doofuses.
Slowdown, schmodown. There were absolutely no down. (My wife and kids tried to get me one for Father’s Day! They could only purchase me a gift certificate … for the new 3G phone (darn)
MDN, iPhone already has it’s own category, it’s called “iPhone” category, period.
Buy half at $143. Buy the other half at $131. This stock move isn’t about fundamentals. It is about liquidity of the people who already own the stock.
If you base the market average of smartphone sales on the average smartphone, you would come up with the same conclusions they did. What they didn’t figure on is that the reason the average smartphones are dropping is that they are now facing the iPhone. They are all going to tumble. (Except for Apple, bringing down the average.) Apple might announce some sales numbers on 9/9, and will definitely blow them away in the next two quarterly reports. They they will see the light we have been basking in for awhile now.
The following is an assessment of the quality of Gartner researchers, and attributed to Computer Associates co-founder Charles Wang:
“I want to choose my words carefully here, so I’m not misunderstood,” he said. “They’re a bunch of fscking idiots.
Both investors and analysts are pretty stupid.
this is great for those of us looking to get back into AAPL. anyway, they will be ok. the problem is the general market… the economy stinks… and the govʻt buying out FANNIE & FREDDIE is a bad deal. sure wish i owned the option puts on those two…
The fall in stock price has more to do with sentiment than reality. The current economic environment is not favorable for consumer spending. So AAPL was hit, as was GOOG.
Despite being an Apple fan, I sold my stock on Friday. With the government essentially nationalizing Freddie and Fannie on Sunday afternoon (before market open in Asia), we are in for a rough ride.
Yep, the “slowdown” (which is still an increase in sales, yeesh) was people holding out for the new iPhone, or Bold, or HTC, absolutely. And people bailing on that dead man walking, Palm.
The fun tomorrow will be when Apple officially announces that they have now sold more than 10 million iPhones.
Gartner is in for the fix now. In cahoots, they’ll drive prices down in order for their clients to buy cheap shares, it’s so obvious, especially because they arent stupid, so logic dictates it’s an ulterior motive.
Why don’t these guys keep their F–king mouths shut.
>So why did Apple shares fall today if their “slowdown” was directly attributable to the iPhone transition
If you can recall, Apple was out of iPhones stock for about a month during that transition. Having lost 1 month of sales out of 12 is big. Not everyone will be patiently waiting for second coming – some with modest needs will go and buy device from competitor and will be locked for 2-3 years on contract with wireless carrier.
>and iPhone 3G sales are expected to increase “dramatically?’
When these expectations become a reality the stock should and will go up.
>The reason “smartphones” sales went into the toilet is because the smart smartphone buyers were waiting for and then buying Apple’s iPhone 3G
No, not really. One iPhone size doesn’t fit all.
the dumbass investors think the iPhone is all Apple sells, like the other two company’s listed, I guess Apple stopped selling all their other products! What a bunch of shitheads!
You all appear to be completely clueless about Gartner. They have virtually every major hardware and software company as a client and absolutely no incentive whatsoever, financial or otherwise, to favor one company over another in their research findings. And I know. So get over your hallucinations and paranoia because you are completely wrong.
just don’t buy your AAPL on margin or with borrowed money
this stock will surely go up eventually so every time it goes down it is cheap