Wanted Dead or Alive? Tim Cook sets analysts straight on the Apple iPhone X

The news appeared ominous. Apple suppliers had record inventory of chips due to lower sales of a high-end phone. A company that sells technology allowing phone assemblers to precisely fit an OLED display reported lower growth. The phone in question is the Apple iPhone X, and since the beginning of this year there was talk that Apple was cutting orders for the phone by 50%.

Celebrated Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo shocked many in January by saying that the company would cease production of the tenth anniversary model by the middle of this year. That was followed by more recent reports to clients from Mirabaud Securities analyst Neil Campling, who as late as yesterday reiterated his earlier comment that the iPhone was dead. Wall Street was said to be in "Full Panic Mode" over Apple.

But Apple CEO Tim Cook soothed analysts and investors alike by commenting yesterday during Apple's quarterly conference call, that since the launch of the iPhone X in November it has been the top selling iPhone each week. The executive noted that this is the first time since Apple "split" its new models with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, that the higher priced iPhone model was the top seller. Cook added that the tenth anniversary model has a 99% customer satisfaction. He called the phone a "Super Bowl winner," and said that Apple couldn't be prouder of the device.

While several analysts did admit to missing the boat on the iPhone X, Apple yesterday announced that it had sold 52.2 million iPhone models during its fiscal Q2, slightly below the Wall Street consensus of 52.4 million units. Most of the number crunchers following Apple raised their target price on the stock and their estimate of iPhone sales for the current quarter. For example, Bank of America's Wamsi Mohan hiked his target on Apple to $225 from $220, and Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley now sees Apple selling 39 million phones in the current quarter, up from her previous forecast of 34 million.


One piece of data that doesn't seem to jive with Cook's comments about the premium priced iPhone X, is the Average Selling Price of iPhone units sold during the fiscal second quarter. The figure of $728 came in under the $740 expected by analysts and would seem to indicate that the iPhone X did not sell as well as expected. Bank of America's Mohan said this happened because of higher demand for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus at the expense of the iPhone X. This seems to dovetail with data from CIRP indicating that the iPhone X accounted for 16% of iPhone sales in the three month period, down from 20% in the prior quarter. At the same time, the iPhone 8/8 Plus combo made up 44% of sales during Apple's fiscal second quarter, up from the 41% of sales that they accounted for in the fiscal first quarter.

source: Wccftech, CNBC