Source: Zhitong Finance "Since 1950, the S&P 500 index has risen more than 10% 21 times as of the end of May. In about 90% of these cases, the S&P 500 index rose for the rest of the year. There were only two instances of declines for the rest of the year, in 1987 (-13%) and 1986 (-0.1%)." With the rebound of the stock market, the old adage "Sell in May and Go Away" seems to have been a bad advice once again. Last month, the S&P 500 index rose 4.8%, the best May performance since 2009. The NASDAQ 100 index rose nearly 6.2%, and the NASDAQ Composite Index rose 6.9%. Goldman Sachs FICC & Equities Trading Division said: "History doesn't really support this saying. Don't sell, leave the market (go on vacation), and enjoy the good times." The rising trend is still to be continued? If history is any guide, it may indicate that the rise of the stock market is not over yet. Looking ahead to the rest of 2024, Scott Rubner, Managing Director of the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Division and tactical expert, pointed out the following historical background for investors. Rubner stated that the S&P 500 index has risen 10.7% year-to-date, and since 1950, the S&P 500 index has risen more than 10% 21 times as of the end of May. In about 90% of these cases, the S&P 500 index rose for the rest of the year. There were only two instances of declines for the rest of the year, in 1987 (-13%) and 1986 (-0.1%). "Since 1950, the median return of the last 7 months of each year (June 1 to December 31) is 5.4%. In the aforementioned 21 cases, the average performance of the last 7 months increased to 8.1%." Rubner added. Rubner also pointed out that the NASDAQ index has risen for 16 consecutive Julys, with an average return of about 4.64%.
Citigroup, a major Wall Street bank, released a research report on Wednesday stating that in the context of intensifying competition in the Chinese smartphone market, after a substantial price reduction, the demand for Apple's high-end flagship iPhone products in the Chinese market tends to stabilize and recover, and this demand growth trend in the Chinese market is crucial for Apple's AI strategic layout and overall performance. Citigroup analyst reiterated the "buy" rating on Apple's stock and a target price of up to $210 in 12 months. Apple's share price rose 0.69% to $195.69 in early trading on the US stock market, getting closer and closer to the historical high of $199.093 in December last year.$Apple (AAPL.US)$According to official data from China at the end of last month, the shipment volume of iPhones in the Chinese market in April soared under the stimulation of the big promotion of the price reduction of the Apple flagship store on major e-commerce platforms, and coupled with Apple's heavier price reduction measures on major e-commerce platforms in May, the high-end iPhone price, which could be called "fracture price," is expected to stimulate the steady recovery of iPhone sales in May.
In a research report to investors by Atif Malik, a stock analyst at Citigroup, he wrote, "Recent third-party statistics show that demand for iPhone smartphones in China is stabilizing and recovering." "The results of our review of the Asian supply chain also show that demand is stabilizing. Meanwhile, Apple has already launched more aggressive sales discounts in the Chinese market before the 618 online shopping festival in China, which we believe will also boost Apple's sales in this quarter."
"Fractured price" greatly boosts iPhone demand in China!
The latest data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that iPhone demand for flagship products rebounded sharply in April in the Chinese market, with shipments increasing by 52% year-on-year, thanks to a series of discounts provided by authorized e-commerce retail partners.
In this country with the second largest population in the world, the recovery trend of iPhone shipment volume in the Chinese market is very important, because this technology giant will launch its artificial intelligence business from next week's developer conference, embed the new version of Siri voice assistant with AI large model and the all-new iOS system may come soon, and the healthy demand for iPhone upgrades in the Chinese market is crucial for Apple.
The latest official data shows that smartphone shipments in China have surged, with about 3.5 million units from foreign brands in April, most of which are iPhones. After experiencing a sharp decline in sales in the Chinese market in the first two months of this year, the iPhone recorded a year-on-year increase in March and April, respectively, according to statistics from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
At the end of May, Apple's flagship stores on various Chinese e-commerce platforms announced the largest price cuts in history. Faced with fierce competition from domestic manufacturers such as Huawei, OPPO, vivo, and Xiaomi in the high-end smartphone market, Apple was forced to boost iPhone sales in the Chinese market by reducing prices. Among them, Tmall Apple Store official flagship store displays that starting from May 20, after the two promotions of official price reduction and Tmall coupon, iPhone 15 Pro is priced from 7999 yuan, with a discount of 1900 yuan; iPhone 15 Pro Max is priced from 9999 yuan, with a discount of 2050 yuan.
In the AI era, Apple will be the "leader" in the technology industry, not the "laggard".
As for the most concerned about generative artificial intelligence in the world, compared with other large technology companies, Citigroup analyst Malik believes that Apple has a very unique advantage. "Apple controls its AI chip design through its seamlessly integrated hardware, software, and service ecosystem, which gives them a good starting point," Malik added. "A product installation base of over 2 billion means that the company has a large user base and a lot of proprietary data to optimize the user's AI experience. At the same time, privacy and security have become one of the most worrying issues for generative AI models, and it is well known that Apple attaches more importance to privacy and data security systems. Data security will be a key advantage for the company, and we hope they will also spend time at WWDC talking about their efforts to protect privacy and data security."
As for the end-side AI functions on Apple's terminal devices, such as the new version of Siri that may integrate GPT-4 or other AI large models, it may require iPhone 15 Pro or higher versions to run smoothly.
As for generative AI, which is of most concern to global investors, compared with other large technology companies, Citigroup analyst Malik believes that Apple has a very unique advantage.
"Apple controls its AI chip design through its seamlessly integrated hardware, software, and service ecosystem, which gives them a good starting point," Malik added. "A product installation base of over 2 billion means that the company has a large user base and a lot of proprietary data to optimize the user's AI experience. At the same time, privacy and security have become one of the most worrying issues for generative AI models, and it is well known that Apple attaches more importance to privacy and data security systems. Data security will be a key advantage for the company, and we hope they will also spend time at WWDC talking about their efforts to protect privacy and data security."
Steve Eisman, the prototype of the film "The Big Short", also believes that Apple will be a potential big winner in the AI boom. He explained that in the long run, Apple will become the most critical application center for AI-dominant software, bringing huge growth potential to its products. "I am very clear that when all these revolutionary AI applications appear, I need a new smart phone, a new iPad and a new laptop. Therefore, the biggest beneficiary when these applications appear may be Apple." Product structure, 10-30 billion yuan products operating income of 401/1288/60 million yuan respectively.
Bank of America, another major Wall Street bank, pointed out that in the future, devices such as smart phones and tablets will need more powerful hardware computing capabilities to handle the daily scale of breakthrough AI applications. For manufacturers of consumer electronics such as smart phones, this means that users have the best opportunity to upgrade their devices. The bank predicts that this will drive the active users of more than 2 billion Apple smart device terminals into the era of AI devices.
Bank of America reiterated its 'outperforming the market' rating for Apple's stock, and expects the tech giant to announce its generative AI strategy at an upcoming developer conference. Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan wrote that the latest iPhone series with AI technology may push a 'multi-year' upgrade cycle, similar to the situation when the smartphone revolution began years ago. Bank of America predicts a target price of up to $230 for Apple, and expects the curve of adoption for AI smartphones to be faster than that of 5G smartphones, and pointed out that the number of upgrades may trigger a once-in-a-decade iPhone event. Analyst Mohan added that although many features of the next generation iPhone may be revealed after the Apple developer conference, this conference is likely to make AI smartphones become mainstream, especially as conversational AI tools such as ChatGPT continue to merge into the daily lives of consumers.
Currently, major smart phone hardware manufacturers are all self-developing large models, and are embedding offline-capable on-device large models into new generations of devices to create so-called 'AI large model smartphones'. Compared with calling cloud computing power for general AI large models, local on-device large models can make smart phone users use products such as ChatGPT more efficiently, conveniently and securely. With the help of on-device AI, they can realize 'personal AI assistants' that better meet users' personal needs similar to the "AI partner" in the movie "HER".
In order to run AI large models on smartphones, some smartphone hardware manufacturers are studying integrating dedicated AI processors, which are exclusively designed for efficient processing of AI tasks, and strive to improve operating efficiency and energy consumption ratio. Manufacturers are also striving to combine cloud computing and edge computing to complete certain complex AI processing in the cloud, and real-time or sensitive tasks are processed locally, as well as exploring the use of model pruning, quantization and knowledge distillation technology to reduce the actual scale and calculation requirements of large models, making them suitable for running on resource-constrained application devices.
Research firm Canalys recently released a research report, predicting that 16% of global smartphone shipments will be AI smartphones in 2024, and by 2028, this proportion will increase exponentially to 54%. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the AI smartphone market size from 2023 to 2028 will be as high as 63%, mainly due to the strong push of consumers' demand for enhanced functions such as AI assistants and on-device automation processing. This transformation is expected to first appeared in high-end smartphone models, and then gradually adopted by mid-range smartphones, reflecting the trend of on-device generative AI as a more universal advanced technology penetrating the overall smartphone market.
量化 predicts that in 2024, 16% of global smartphone shipments will be AI smartphones, and by 2028, this proportion will increase exponentially to 54%. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the AI smartphone market size from 2023 to 2028 will be as high as 63%, mainly due to the strong push of consumers' demand for enhanced functions such as AI assistants and on-device automation processing. This transformation is expected to first appeared in high-end smartphone models, and then gradually adopted by mid-range smartphones, reflecting the trend of on-device generative AI as a more universal advanced technology penetrating the overall smartphone market.
Editor / jayden