Rosenblatt analyst barton crockett Repeatedly gave a “buy” rating for apple company AAPL Target price is $261.
Verizon Communications Inc. VZ, AT&T Inc. T and T-Mobile US, Inc. TMUS Q3 2024 earnings report reveals a trend towards lower smartphone upgrade rates, raising concerns about an expected AI-driven super cycle.
AT&T’s upgrade rate fell to 3.5% from 3.9% a year ago. Verizon fell from 3.4% to 3.0%, and T-Mobile fell slightly from 2.7% to 2.6%.
These declines occurred despite overall net postpaid phone subscriber growth that met Verizon and AT&T’s expectations and exceeded T-Mobile’s expectations.
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The data suggests that the expected supercycle in smartphone upgrades has yet to materialize, but analysts remain optimistic.
A supercycle was not modeled for the September quarter, instead predicting iPhone sales growth of only 3%. Going forward, more robust growth of 4% is expected in three out of four quarters of FY2025, with 7% growth expected in the March 2025 quarter due to the launch of the new iPhone SE.
The supercycle is expected to be fully realized in 2026, thanks to the iPhone 17 and Apple’s AI advances.
Apple is rolling out Apple Intelligence features in stages, starting October 28th with iOS 18.1, which includes limited AI capabilities.
iOS 18.2 introduces ChatGPT integration and advanced features like Visual Intelligence and Genmoji to further drive future sales.
Regarding current trends, according to IDC data, Apple smartphone shipments increased by 3.5% year-on-year in Q3 2024, and global smartphone shipments increased by 4%.
However, subsidized upgrades for U.S. carriers are down about 7% year over year, which is only partially correlated with global sales.
This trend may be due to Apple’s increased use of installment plans to finance iPhone purchases, which may reduce the impact of carrier subsidies. Despite the slow start to the current iPhone cycle, analysts expect the introduction of AI to significantly accelerate sales within a year, and the stock price is likely to reflect that momentum in advance. .
Crockett expected fourth-quarter sales of $94.83 billion and EPS of $1.62.
AAPL Price Action: Apple stock was down 0.22% at $230.30 as of Thursday’s announcement.
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