Malcolm Owen
Tuesday's anticipated launch of new iPhone models isn't going to be a massively interesting event for investors, JP Morgan suggests, with "limited surprise" for the iPhone forcing most of the attention on pricing and other potential hardware launches.
Announcements at the event related to the iPhone are "unlikely to be a material event for the shares," analysts believe, given the unlikely possibility of surprise features arriving with the new models. Key watchpoints including 2019 iPhone pricing and other hardware announcements "have more opportunity to surprise relative to expectations," the note to investors seen by AppleInsider states.
Pricing for the 2019 models are anticipated to remain consistent with the 2018 batch, with Apple thought to be "prioritizing pricing levers" relative to near-term volumes. The limited updates are thought to make it an "opportune year" for Apple to repurpose typical supply chain savings and make the overall lineup cheaper, but instead "we expect Apple to maintain prices" in the face of the Chinese goods import tariff applied by the US government.
While Apple could maintain the pricing levels in 2019, the expected introduction of an iPhone with 5G in 2020 could afford a "more moderate price increase."
The features list for the 2019 iPhones are expected to be minor technological upgrades, as detailed by rumors and other analysts, including triple cameras in both OLED-based models and a dual camera in the LCD version, along with bilateral wireless charging.
The forecast volumes for the 2019 iPhones by the end of the calendar year will apparently be higher than those seen by the 2018 models in that respective year, but "largely on account of timing changes of launches relative to last year." The 2019 versions are forecast to shift 4 million more models by the end of the year than the 2019 variants, due to the delay in the launch of the iPhone XR last year.
The "refresh and upgrade of Apple Watch and other hardware devices" are important to leverage Apple's install base and to drive hardware revenues, the analysts continue.
"While growth in Services revenue through leverage of the large and growing installed base is key to the investment story for Apple," JP Morgan believes Apple can still continue to drive hardware revenue growth through increases in both volume and pricing for updated models, with new HomePods named alongside an Apple Watch refresh.
AppleInsider will be at Apple's Steve Jobs Theater for Tuesday's "By Innovation Only" event. Follow along with us here, on Twitter, on YouTube, and on Instagram to get all the details of the new iPhone and more!
Christine McKee
Chip Loder
Marko Zivkovic
Amber Neely
14 Comments
What's new this year? Europe. Europe. Europe. The opportunity to pick up big gains in the prosperous underserved region, due to Huawei woes, which will hurt its handset sales more in EU than China. Let's see if Apple's new offerings can pick up at least 5 percentage point market share by 2020. Now that Apple has many more ways to monetize user after initial handset purchase... Is Europe even on US analysts radar?
As Apple branches out by shifting sales from Apple Stores (focusing Apple Stores more on customer education and support*) to third parties like Best Buy and Amazon this also gives them much greater pricing flexibility: They can keep the MSRP steady while enabling those third party vendors to offer discounts -- particularly as the year rolls on.
In addition, last year they introduced increased trade-in rates (I got $150 for an iPhone 6 that was likely completely worthless to them). So, they can leverage that initiative as well.
I suspect that, as the months roll on and Trump's trade war winds down (along with his tariffs), we will begin to see more and more of these types of informal price cuts.
* I have seen a drastic improvement in service & support in my own local Apple Store since Ahrendts was pushed out.
Tomorrow... iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac announcements.
October... Entertainment/Media Services and Accesories; AppleTV, Air Pods, HomePod, TV+, Apple Arcade, subscription bundling, maybe a surprise or two.