“FBR & Co.’s Daniel Ives, who has an Outperform rating on Apple (AAPL) shares, and a $185 price target, was on CNBC a short while ago with the channel’s Brian Sullivan, defending the name against worries about China’s sputtering stock market hurting sales of iPhone and other things,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s.
“Sure, said Ives, ‘China is the high octane fuel’ for Apple. However, he went on to say that ‘this quarter, you will have another upside to Apple results, and at ten times, ex-cash, this is a near term speed bump, we think,'” Ray reports. “Asked if he agreed with another recent guest who opined that the China share issue won’t really spread to the real economy, and consumption, Ives replied, ‘Yes, we’re on the same page.'”
Ray reports, “Ives thinks Apple should disclose Apple Watch numbers, rather than merely lumping it into its ‘Other’ category without comment. ‘They do have to come out with the numbers, though, part of them being a black box has added to the overhang around the watch.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple would have gotten away with staying mum on Apple Watch unit sales, if they had made enough to launch the product properly. Instead, they failed spectacularly to meet demand and the buzz died down enough for the shorts/FUDsters to move in, as they always do. Now the pressure is on Apple to give some meaningful data on AW sales. Apple created this pressure on themselves.
Yes, we understand that taptic engine problems caused a production disruption. It is Apple’s management team’s job to have effective plan B strategies for just such an occurrence. In this case, they failed and now they are paying the price.
Now, not only do you have shorts/FUDsters baselessly claiming that Apple Watch is a “flop,” you have lower unit sales numbers than you should have by now since you did not have anywhere near adequate supply on hand to conduct the launch properly and to follow it up with stocked retail stores for the wave after the early adopters. The Apple Watch launch was FUBAR and the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of Jeff Williams, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Operations and his mentor, former COO, now CEO, Tim Cook.
Yo, MDN. Chill. It’s not a big deal. Roll with it.
I totally disagree the launch was bungled. I think the launch was perfectly executed as best it could have been given the new category with no history of what the assembly quantity mix of models and bands should have been. I’ve had mine since April 28, still in the first week of deliveries. And no one needs to wait more than a week or two now for most configs. So how was it bungled? I think not.😱💥⌚️😃
I disagree, MDN. The one aspect to mass production that tends to slow things down is QA. And thankfully, apple is very thorough with their QA. Better to have to few and make it up over time than to pump out way more than you should sacrificing quality.
You can’t have it both ways. Also consider that this is a new device to manufacture for them. Just like the iPhone, over time, their production numbers will ramp up launch to launch. Nothing new really. Same shit happened with the iPad.
Apple watch sales a flop? And the gaping wound in the sales figures in the Swiss luxury watch market means that everyone in that market just decided not to buy ANYTHING? I think it is proof positive Apple sales must not be too bad to cause that kind of damage to competitors.
If certain people want to call AppleWatch a flop then you can’t change that. I doubt Apple is being hurt by it at all. They’re making money and not losing money. Hardly anyone is writing bunches of articles calling Microsoft’s Nokia venture a flop and MS basically threw away $7 billion and got nothing for it.
I don’t think anyone actually knows how large the smartwatch market is, so it’s very difficult to judge what’s failure or success in terms of sales. Does anyone outside of Apple know how much money Apple put into AppleWatch R&D and production to call it a failure? No, they don’t. These people are simply anti-Apple blowhards who think they’re smarter than everyone else. I really hate these arrogant pricks who criticize Apple for such petty reasons. They don’t even precisely know how many AppleWatches have been sold to date to call it a flop.
I think you are barking up to the right tree. It’s interesting that the barrage of Apple Watch hate came the same time the quarter ended. One scenario could be when the traditional watch makers boards saw their quarters’ numbers they went into panic mode. So, they could of called-in a few favors and started the attack.
Another scenario could be a hedge fund that was net short financed the attack to drive the stock lower and profit. Similar “financial activities” have occurred in the past.
Apple PR should of been better prepared to defend this onslaught, quiet period or not.
Hey “big media,” where’s the sensationalist story about AAPL making $18.5B “appear” in a single day for Apple investors? 🙂
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
“Ives thinks Apple should disclose Apple Watch numbers, rather than merely lumping it into its ‘Other’ category without comment.
And after Apple has been able to actually sell the watch to the public WITHOUT manufacturing limitation, maybe Apple WILL share the number. Meanwhile, run along home AnalCysts and find someone else to pick on. Your lack of credibility is showing.
Oh and, the official term for what happened to the China stock market this week is ‘Crash’. Simple as that. It was not ‘sputtering’. Where did that lame term come from? Go read up on the phrase ‘stock market crash’ to learn more.
MDN, I usually like your take on things, you’re totally off on this one.
1. they didn’t bungle anything.
2. faulty taptic engines is just a rumor, don’t forget that you report rumors.
3. regardless of anything Apple would have done, the FUDsters as you call them would have been saying exactly the same things. How can you observe Apple news/rumor/vitriol week after week and not see they would have flung crap no matter what Apple did, as they’ve always done?
MDN- get a grip
Totally nailed it on #3 there. Well said.