“It certainly wasn’t the finish to 2018 [for which] shareholders of technology giant Apple were looking,” Bill Maurer writes for Seeking Alpha. “Amidst China trade war concerns fueling speculation of an iPhone slowdown, the stock lost more than 32% from its all-time high to the year’s finish. With that basically putting every analyst target above where shares are currently, I’m here today to discuss what I think Apple needs in 2019 to get its mojo back.”
“When it’s time for Apple to unveil its new phones in the fall of 2019, consumers on two-year plans for the iPhone 8 will be eligible to upgrade. The smallest of the ‘new phones’ launched in 2018 was a screen size of 5.8 inches. While the elimination of the Home button helped a bit, that’s still too big of a device for many consumers. There have been rumors for a year or two now about a new version of the SE, but I just don’t see that in Apple’s plans currently with the focus being on protecting margins,” Maurer writes. “My personal opinion is to go with two ‘entry-level’ and two ‘premium’ phones moving forward.”
“With the share count dropping at a much faster pace into this year’s expected Spring 2019 dividend raise, a much more significant increase would seem to be in the cards,” Maurer writes. “Given we saw a 15.9% increase last year, it would really be a shame if we don’t see a minimum of a 20% raise, if not closer to 25%. Getting the annual dividend yield toward 2.5% could go a long way on attracting new investors into the stock, and it makes the buyback even more intriguing.”
Apple also needs “a better entry-level strategy for tablets / laptops,” Maurer writes. “It’s all about bringing more and more consumers into the Apple ecosystem. Obviously, selling more devices will generate more revenue, but the more important part for the company moving forward is to sell extras and accessories that go with these devices.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The rampant echo chamber “concerns” over iPhone and iPad sales couldn’t have been more overblown.
All Apple really needs is to execute their plans in 2019. The user base is already there and customer satisfaction is off-the-charts high, so repeat hardware sales are a given as is strong ecosystem (services) growth.
SEE ALSO:
iPhone XR sees biggest adoption of any new iPhone yet, but iPads did even better – January 2, 2019
MDN – Ads at the top, both sides and bottom are more than enough.
PLEASE STOP putting adds in the middle of people’s posts.
Agreed. It makes reading and scrolling the screen difficult. I now entirely blocked the ad. MDN naturally wished to prevent us from cutting off the ads entirely by zooming the screen. Difficult to find a compromising point. If they stop this “in your face” type layout of ads, I will white list them as I consider it is a legitimate request for us to access the ads.
I am really excited for a better entry-level strategy for tablets and laptops of Apple because I am iPhone lover. Thanks for such an awesome blog.
Emily,
Marketing Dissertation Writer,
http://www.dissertationhelp.uk/marketing-dissertation/
Worst part is the screen refreshes in the middle of composing a post and having to start all over again..
Very very frustrating.
The share market is basically at the end of the Obama economic expansion. The graph might well be heading down as part of Trump’s “Economic Miracle”. Maybe the start of a Trump Recession .
Are we on the same page here?
you’re several pages behind. You have acted like a bubbleheaded cheerleader for all things Trump and all things Apple. No one could ever dissuade you how biased you are. But here we are, the predicted Trump meltdown is gaining pace, trade is in massive disarray, multinational corporations are losing more in trade losses than they have gained in deficit-ballooning tax giveaways, and idiots like Cook are acting surprised that their overpriced consumer toys all produced in China aren’t selling.
Apple won’t recover until they get lean and start delivering better choices and value to users. With the Xtra Price iPhone lineup and “you must get AppleCare because you willing never repair it “ Mac lineup, Apple won’t recover until the world economy stabilizes, and the world economy will not stabilize until May and Trump are gone. Apple, Britain, the US all desperately need new leadership. And you need to spend more time educating yourself with a full spectrum of data instead of going hardover to right wing propaganda and blind Apple worship opinion blogs.
“repeat hardware sales are a given”
Apple has no replacement for the iPhone 5/SE-sized product line. So there will be few repeat hardware sales for that premium market segment. Look to other manufacturers to fill that space that Apple has ceded.
I am prepared to pay a reasonable premium for an iPhone that satisfies the following requirements (and shut up my mouth for overpricing issue along the way).
1. Accommodate the touch ID in some form. Home button or in-screen. Having both touch and face ID options is fine.
2. Size of the SE, but if not, somewhere between it and the Xs, but no larger than that, and as close as possible to SE
3. 3.5mm phone jack would be nice. I prefer wired earbuds.
I’d care less for anything else.
Maybe it’s time to dissolve terms like “guidance”. Who’s guidance? Oh ya, the money manager and analysts that don’t know much about the Apple eco system or much in general.
Why should a company take huge losses just because a few people believe the direction and offerings a company should put forth?
Pretty interesting, Apple is making Phones bigger and losing functionality, while making computers smaller and losing functionality…. yeah that’s a company with direction!
A lot of this is simply “back to basics”, yet Apple is regularly trying to ignore core products (Mac Pro) as well as to discontinue ancillary products (routers, etc).
As such, the Apple product portfolio is becoming smaller which also means narrower, which translates into higher risks for investors.
In the meantime, MDN also reports “Is Apple at risk of becoming the next Blackberry?” and tries to slough it off, but that’s precisely what’s happening: Apple is increasingly reliant on the iPhone (instead of broadening the ecosystem) and as much as there’s some good news in the expansion of revenue from Services, the vast majority of these are also directly tied to the iPhone: when customers shift their smartphone choices, those Services that they had been buying will vaporize VERY quickly.
We’re really excited about losing an SE sized phone and the headphone jack. We love the iPhone NOTCH and BENT iPads. We are excited at how limited Siri is compared to the competition. We love how HomeKit works with a mere fraction of the devices that Google and Alexa work with. We are very happy with AirPower charging mat that was PROMISED to deliver in 2018. We like MacBook Pro displays with the anti-reflective coating that delaminates, too. We love the buggy versions of iOS and MacOS that Apple keeps on releasing. Yeah MacDaily News, “customer satisfaction is off-the-charts high”!
Well to be fair do far the figures don’t reflect your view but MDNs. That might be of course that the record of the opposition is generally far worse of course which is my experience, as Apple has certainly not been helping itself of late sadly.
great ppst.
sdf
I thought that MDN was telling us some of that user base for example SE users like me not to mention my 35 year Apple exclusive loyalty were not wanted we are too cheap skate apparently. Thank good who ever wrote that doesn’t work for Apple though looking at recent events maybe they or someone with similar elitist views do, and worse still running the show. Catering for only the rich end of their customer base not only will lose many present users but will prevent many new ones entering the Eco system and these days once you choose your platform there are plenty of barriers to leaving it in this industry. So perhaps those just starting out on the road to potential success can be useful after all MDN if only you make an effort to catch them and not consider them irrelevant to profits.
Wow awesome post. Personally i am big Iphone lover so i like to read this post on Apple’s biggest needs for 2019. Thank you for sharing information regarding Apple phone.
– Alyssa Patterson,
Assistant Assignment Writer
http://www.secureassignmenthelp.com/english-assignment-help/
Your blog site is so superb. How fortunate to see everything you have created. Hope you proceed to do the job tough.
I hope apple comes up with new Display monitor which are reasonable in price. Web designer and Graphic designer likes us need this.