Apple set up for huge 5G iPhone sales

While Apple shares have sagged since Tuesday’s new-product event, Wall Street remains generally bullish about the company heading into the highly anticipated announcement of the first 5G iPhones sometime in October.

Last Thursday, Jefferies analyst Kyle McNealy repeated his Buy rating on Apple stock and lifted his price target to $135 from $116,25, seeing a “strong setup in key regions” heading into the new iPhone cycle.

“We see historically low upgrade rates and handset subsidies in the US reversing trend, share gains versus Huawei in Europe, and a massive legacy installed base in China looking to upgrade,” he writes in a research note.

A morning briefing on what you need to know in the day ahead, including exclusive commentary from Barron’s and MarketWatch writers. In the US market, he says, the upgrade rate has been running around 5 percent of the installed base per quarter, “well below the 8-10 percent seen in 2014-2016

,” following the launch of iPhone 6. He also notes that carrier device subsidies are also near all-time lows. He thinks those trends are going to reverse “as wireless operators compete for new 5G users and look to monetize the new spectrum they’ve been building out…the new spectrum of course requires new upgraded handsets to leverage the additional capacity.”

As for Europe, he sees Apple as a beneficiary of lost market share at Huawei Technologies, which has been hurt by US trade restrictions on components. –  Moneyweb

 

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