“An analyst from a tiny research firm claimed that production of Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhones will decline 20% in the second half,” Douglas A. McIntyre writes for 24/7 Wall St. “The claim does not hold water.”
“Even the largest research houses can only guess what the huge consumer electronics firm’s future is. And the wide spread of opinions means that only one or two can be right,” McIntyre writes. “The rest will be wrong. The statement seems obvious, but it is rarely mentioned. To make matters more obscure, any analyst can walk onto Wall St.’s stage and make a wild claim. If it is wild enough, it might get some attention.”
“Brian Blair at Wedge Partners sent a note to his clients in which he forecast that due to “slowing demand for high-end handsets globally,” iPhone production will fall to 90 million to 100 million from previous a previously forecast 115 million to 120 million. The extreme spread of each forecast indicates how inaccurate both are,” McIntyre writes. “Wedge has five analysts, at most, according to its own PR. And none of them has a reputation worth mentioning.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Some “analysts” exist only to manage clients’ expectations and to generate trades, and hence commissions for their firms. Whether the trades are buy or sell is meaningless, only that a commission-generating trade is triggered.
Just today, a report out of China states that the production volume at the Zhengzhou iPhone assembly plant “touched over 32 million devices during the January to May period.”
Related article:
Foxconn recruiting workers for ‘sizable production’ of Apple iPhone 6, source says – July 9, 2013
Horace Dediu: Investors should expect a 40% drop in Apple shares at any time and for no reason – May 3, 2013