“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.