On September 16th, Beijing time, $Apple (AAPL.US)$ Pre-market trading in the U.S. once fell more than 2%, to $217.24 per share.
Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingcheng stated that the pre-ordered sales of the iPhone 16 series in the first weekend are estimated to be around 37 million units, a decrease of about 12.7% compared to the first weekend sales of the iPhone 15 series last year, primarily due to lower-than-expected sales of the iPhone 16 Pro series.
Ming-Chi Kuo pointed out that the shipment time of the iPhone 16 Pro series is significantly lower than that of the 15 Pro series. Besides the increased pre-order inventory, the key reason for the reduction in sales compared to the first weekend lies in the lower-than-expected demand.
The key reason for the lower-than-expected sales of the iPhone 16 Pro series is that Apple's major selling point, Apple Intelligence, cannot go live with the iPhone 16. At the same time, the fierce competition in the Chinese market has also reduced the demand for the iPhone.
In this year's launch event, AI-related terms such as Apple Intelligence and Machine Learning were mentioned multiple times, showing Apple's emphasis on the AI field. However, from the disclosed information, the AI features that consumers are looking forward to have not been fully launched. According to the official Apple website, Apple's AI is not yet available for iPhone models purchased in mainland China.
It's worth noting that the first weekend sales of the iPhone 16 Plus and iPhone 16 saw a slight increase, but this has limited help in boosting the overall iPhone shipments.
Affected by this, the apple supplier stocks in Hong Kong fell generally today. By the close, q tech fell 4.33%, to HKD 4.2 per share; aac tech fell 3.88%, cowell fell 1.44%, and tongda group fell 2.82%.
Previously, Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that in 2024, Apple's iPhone shipments will decrease significantly by about 38%, from 0.31 billion units in 2023 to around 0.2 billion units. He believes that the lack of innovation in Apple's iPhone products in recent years is one of the main reasons for the decrease in consumer expectations for new products.
From the data disclosed by several third-party institutions recently, Apple's market share in the smart phone market is indeed facing challenges.
According to market institution IDC's data, in the second quarter of this year, China's smart phone shipments increased by 8.9% year-on-year, while iPhone declined by 3.1%.
The top five market share rankings are vivo, Huawei, OPPO, Honor, and Xiaomi, all of which are Chinese phone manufacturers. Despite Apple's major price cuts in May this year, its market share has fallen to sixth place. This is the first time it has dropped out of the top five in the past five years.
However, Ming-Chi Kuo believes that although the sales of the Pro series are lower than expected, the production plans of the supply chain will not change significantly in the short term, and Apple still has the opportunity to increase sales after the launch of Apple Intelligence and subsequent promotions during the peak season (China's singles' day sales).
He also said that if the sales of the iPhone 16 series are not significantly improved after the launch of Apple Intelligence and 'Singles' Day' in the fourth quarter of 2024, Apple will adopt a more aggressive product strategy to boost market demand in 2025.
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