“Welcome to the great iPhone debate of 2015: Have sales of the larger-screened phones peaked?” Tim Higgins reports for Bloomberg. “A day after Apple Inc. posted a 33 percent jump in quarterly earnings, shares rose and fell on Tuesday as investors questioned whether Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook can keep iPhone sales roaring and continue to turn in revenue growth in excess of 20 percent a quarter.”
“‘Potential upside from iPhone seems to be waning and we see more risk to consensus F2016 estimates than upside opportunity,’ Andy Hargreaves, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, wrote in a note to investors. Analysts’ consensus estimates for next year anticipate ‘iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch unit sales that are at the high end of or above what we believe is likely, which suggests our expectations are meaningfully low or new categories are needed to make up the difference,’ Higgins reports. “Indeed, Apple will face tough year-over-year comparisons in the next fiscal year, when there won’t be the same pent-up demand for Apple’s first large-screen iPhones, according to a report by Bloomberg Intelligence.”
“Apple, for its part, says the momentum will continue. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which debuted in September, helped boost Apple’s phone unit sales for the recent quarter by 40 percent globally and more than 70 percent in China, where the new larger screens are especially popular. Apple estimates that only 20 percent of its active installed base of iPhone users has upgraded to the new device,” Higgins reports. “The company forecast revenue will rise 23 percent to 28 percent in the current period from a year earlier. That outlook suggests iPhone sales may rise 31 percent this quarter to 46 million, Piper Jaffray’s Munster wrote in a note to investors Monday.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We have to conclude that either Andy Hargreaves is gambling that something unforeseen will happen that will make him look like genius or that he’s simply not a smart man. At this time, we lean heavily towards the latter.
When Tim Cook says publicly that the data to which he’s privy suggest “there’s plenty of upgrade headroom” to iPhone, we recommend that analysts listen to him versus coming up with their own cockamamie theories of “waning” based upon, you know, “seems.”
Hargreaves’ load, er… note has been iCal’ed for future reference.
Oh, by the way:
This genius Andy Hargreaves told his clients, who must be braindead to employ Andy, to sell their shares of Apple Inc. one week ahead of Apple’s unveiling of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. At the time, AAPL had dropped under $100 per share.
Related article:
Apple drops below $100 as Pacific Crest Securities advises selling shares now – September 3, 2014