Apple Analysts Remain Upbeat Ahead of Expected iPhone X Upgrade Supercycle

[sidewinder3000]

Let's hope it's not $1,000 or else it's gonna be anything but "super".

False. This amazing prediction is based on... nothing? Anyone paying attention knows that the current iPhone 7 plus with 256 is already close to a thousand bucks. A $1000 price tag will have zero, and I quote "zero" impact on sales.
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But what about the Macrumor analysts?!

They swear the 7, Apple Watch, and AirPods are duds!

I've never noticed the Macrumors writing staff sandbagging the 7, watch and AirPods as duds. Can you cite an example?
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I think the iPhone 8 will be successful, but since Apple has 63% of its revenue coming from iPhone sales, I think they are flirting with danger.

That's kind of an absurd statement. Their smaller divisions like Mac and "other" make more profit on their own than most entire corporations do. 63% sounds significant, but a pie chart doesn't tell the whole story when even the smallest slivers are bigger than most companies' entire pies.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

The 7s will be out in Sept as normal. All this made up iPhone 8 stuff has snow balled out of control, it all began with those same supply chain analysts who time and time again TC has said not to give the time of day to.

I believe this to be the case too. Yes we've heard the rumors, seen mock-ups made by out of control fanboys and manufacturers have jumped the gun with cases but Apple hasn't even hinted at an iPhone 8 this year. Nothing. Not even a "wait and see what we've got coming". What if the technology in the iPhone 8 is so advanced they have to start testing/producing now for next years iPhone and that's what we are hearing about now? Yes, we all want it this year and yes maybe the competitors phones will look more pretty this year but Apple aren't going to release a dud just because Samsung have released a phone. I feel people are going to be disappointed come September.

Oh, and don't bother with that "anniversary" and Steve Jobs Theater nonsense, that's just wishful thinking fan-service and has nothing to do with business.

 

[ValO]

The only reason apple could demo/show (a part of)the iphone 8/x at wwdc, is to have an excuse for falling iphone sale numbers for this quarter.

 

[vmistery]

I'm anticipating a good upgrade, if it just the 6sss then it's not going to tempt me from my 6s which is running like a dream still. Fingers crossed! If not there is always next year.

 

[Pakaku]

But what about the Macrumor analysts?!

They swear the 7, Apple Watch, and AirPods are duds!

Major emphasis on the first two syllables in analyst

 

[rikscha]

you don't need to be a genius to see that this share will go up the roof. Invested 20k at $139 only a while ago and already happy.

 

[TheShadowKnows!]

The Toronto Maple Leafs are the worst and most profitable team in hockey. Why should they invest in doing better when they make so much money. If people stopped buying tickets they'd have a stanley cup within 3 years.

If people stopped buying iPhones, we'd have something amazing the next year.

And Cook flushed out off that "amazing pipeline".

Forever.

Sorry, but I have an extreme aversion to that empty t-shirt (he does not wear a suit).

Cook belongs on a desk placed on the darkest corner of the floorplan, without windows (LOL!!), massaging his bean-counter spreadsheets on an iPad (Oops! sorry, a Mac running Excel. "Why would you want to buy a PC anymore?" he asked).

 

[TallManNY]

I'm anticipating a good upgrade, if it just the 6sss then it's not going to tempt me from my 6s which is running like a dream still. Fingers crossed! If not there is always next year.

My 6S is great as well. But just yesterday some folks were taking photos with a 7 Plus at my office and were blown away by portrait mode. I assume I will be able to get that on the 8 without going into the Plus size (which I don't want). I think the camera will be what pushes me to upgrade. But the thumb ID better work well. Though I'm already upgrading my Blackberry in a month or so. And I want an iPad Pro. I'm just waiting for those to get released. So lots of mobile purchases in the works already. Hmm.

Oh and will buy a Siri home base as well as soon as Apple releases one.

 

[A MacBook lover]

False. This amazing prediction is based on... nothing? Anyone paying attention knows that the current iPhone 7 plus with 256 is already close to a thousand bucks. A $1000 price tag will have zero, and I quote "zero" impact on sales.
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I've never noticed the Macrumors writing staff sandbagging the 7, watch and AirPods as duds. Can you cite an example?

Forum comments

 

[Born Again]

Spoken by somebody that has no idea what it takes to run a $43 billion company and what it means to "Innovate." Fortunately, this is nothing more than an opinionated website where you're free and clear to post your anecdotal assumptions.

Let's look at the proof.

iPhone 6 = 6s = 7 = profit

So say what you will Apple knows what they're doing and the sheeple are buying it.

And sheeple isn't a bad word. It's in the dictionary. Look it up.

 

[shk718]

Let's hope it's not $1,000 or else it's gonna be anything but "super".

The maxed out iPhone 7+ w/o contract is currently $969.
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When you bet 62% of your revenue on one product line, these things happen.

Can there be a single person who after ten years doesn't realise you NEVER buy an Apple phone when September is less than 6 months away? Even an S upgrade is worth waiting for.

If Apple spent some more effort on OTHER products and had quarterly release schedules they could flatten out the September spike. There's a lot of other products they could surely spare a few people to work on. Can it really take that much effort to upgrade a laptop with faster processors or more memory? Really?

For too many years we have heard about "the pipeline of great products". Where are they? Why not release the rumoured iPad 10.5" now? Get something positive happening in that space and flatten out the release schedule? It's not that hard to think a January Mac/laptop release, April iPod/iPad release, June Watch/TV release and September iPhone/iOS/OS would spread the load and keep customers happier.

It just feels now like Apple sleeps until June then wakes up and goes "oh we better release something this year".

I used to regularly upgrade iPods and iPads. The incremental increases in speed and capacity and continued premium pricing finally cured me. Memory for other brands is so much more "real world". For music and video I jumped to the dark side where Android phones and tablets let me use OTG USB and SD cards to store way more media. Sure the software isn't as polished as iTunes but VLC works well enough.

iTunes is a mess. Has been for years. Once I could put everything in there that was mine. Then the focus shifted to getting me into the Cloud - with limits. 25,000 matched songs. That was it. For a long time. There's too much going on in there and too little focus. Menus, sidebars come and go. Too much "Try Apple Music". I do stream but use Spotify and Netflix. Why? Because my ISP provides unmetered Netflix and my iPhone carrier gives me unmetered Spotify data.

Apple today seems like Microsoft at it's peak. Too scared to do anything other than milk it's success. It took competition (and ousting a few lacking-in-vision managers) before they got their act together again. Apple hardware and software have always been more durable, better quality and felt worth the premium price. My 10 years old iMac only just can't run the latest OS. It soldiers on and for most tasks works well. But it could be due an upgrade if the right product came along.

You should look at their earnings. Services, Mac and wearables are all growing double digits. They sold fewer iPhones this quarter but profits were up - meaning their other businesses are growing enough to cover the iPhone. When the new phone comes out and if predictions of a super cycle are true then Apple will show huge growth. i think their goals are to increase their install base which they did this quarter - and grow services and wearables off that base. That sounds like a very strong business to me.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The current consensus one-year price estimate for AAPL is $151.40. This represents less than a 5% increase over its current market value. You can call this "bullish" if you like, but you'd be wrong.

 

[sofila]

In hindsight, if I still had every share I ever bought I would be much wealthier. Unfortunately, hindsight is not an investment strategy I know how to use well.

It depends on what you've done with the money obtained selling your stock. There are several options who made a better return for the money involved. In hindsight, naturally

 

[calzon65]

That's kind of an absurd statement. Their smaller divisions like Mac and "other" make more profit on their own than most entire corporations do. 63% sounds significant, but a pie chart doesn't tell the whole story when even the smallest slivers are bigger than most companies' entire pies.

The fact that Apple's other divisions are larger than some other companies is totally irrelevant, or I should say ... is an absurd statement.

You obviously don't understand stock valuation and product/service revenue mix. If a company has 63% of its total revenue coming from a single product and if that product suffers a significant negative market upset, there will almost certainly be a material (negative) affect on its stock price. That's not absurd, its common sense for those who understand market cause and effect.

 

[9081094]

I honestly think iPhone 8 will underwhelm and won't bring anything new to what's already on the market. It will only excel on price where no one can beat them to sell more expensive.

 

[rpat701]

I think there's still upside in the stock - just not as much as during the time where a slightly mature iPhone overlapped with the first few generations of iPads and solid macs that used a sane approach to connectivity (not USB-C). Not to mention, Steve Jobs was still alive and at the heart of product strategy. That was when AAPL was firing on all cylinders...not now.

 

[Unami]

When you bet 62% of your revenue on one product line, these things happen.

by "these things" you mean that although they sold a little less units of that 62% product than in last year's Q2, they still earned more with it? personally, i'd prefer these things did not happen, so they won't get ideas (like a 1000€+ iphone)

 

[doelcm82]

I think there's still upside in the stock - just not as much as during the time where a slightly mature iPhone overlapped with the first few generations of iPads and solid macs that used a sane approach to connectivity (not USB-C). Not to mention, Steve Jobs was still alive and at the heart of product strategy. That was when AAPL was firing on all cylinders...not now.

I recall the time you are thinking of. Steve Jobs was alive, but dying. Tim Cook was the heir apparent. Under Cook's leadership that upside was realized, and here we stand with the stock near an all-time high. Looking back, there was plenty of upside just a few weeks ago---under Cook.

 

[M.PaulCezanne]

Aren't "overweight" and "outperform" essentially the same rating?

 

[IJ Reilly]

Aren't "overweight" and "outperform" essentially the same rating?

Every brokerage house has their own definitions of these terms. They are effectively meaningless.

 

[travelsheep]

Just bought an iPhone 6s from Apple Store in Austria/Europe: iPhone € 759 + AppleCare € 149 + Screen Protector € 25 = € 933 = US$ 1026

US$ 1026 for iPhone 6s in 2017

 

[sidewinder3000]

The fact that Apple's other divisions are larger than some other companies is totally irrelevant, or I should say ... is an absurd statement.

You obviously don't understand stock valuation and product/service revenue mix. If a company has 63% of its total revenue coming from a single product and if that product suffers a significant negative market upset, there will almost certainly be a material (negative) affect on its stock price. That's not absurd, its common sense for those who understand market cause and effect.

Making assumptions about what I "obviously don't understand" tells me all I need to know about why engaging you in a serious discussion is a waste of time. So I'll just briefly mention that a) there is no "danger" for Apple in slightly raising the price of one version iPhone unless it results in a complete market rejection, which it won't. Therefore they aren't flirting with disaster. And b) Apple stock has rarely ever been valued as high as it should be, and stock price is hardly the metric Apple's fortunes revolve around. Profit, first and foremost, is Apple's key driver, and slightly raising the price of their top end phone will likely do nothing but increase profit.