In Terms of Slowing iPhone Shipments Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo Says “Worst Soon Over”

Apple in September expected its revenue guidance for the first quarter of 2019 to be $89-93 billion, but for the first time earlier this month, Apple lowered its revenue guidance to just $84 billion, due to fewer iPhone upgrades in the emerging market especially in China.

The well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo in his latest research not with TF International Securities believes in regard to the slowdown that the “worst” will be “soon over” and he said that Apple and its iPhone suppliers’ share prices are affected negatively.

Our report published on December 14, 2018, was the first to cut the estimation of 2019 iPhone shipments to 190mn units or less; the current market consensus on 2019 iPhone shipments (160–180mn units) is much lower than our estimation and we believe the share prices of Apple and most iPhone suppliers are generally priced in the negative.
We maintain our forecast of 188–192mn units for 2019 iPhone shipments. We believe the downside risks of share prices for the Apple and iPhone supply chain are limited in the near term given that 2Q19 iPhone shipments will likely be better than the market consensus.

For the first quarter of 2019 the analyst Kuo has slightly lowered his predictions for iPhone shipments from 38-42 million units to 36-38 million units, attributed that to the "demand for new models in China and emerging markets is lower than expected," but Kuo has an optimistic vision for the future, starting in the next quarter this decline will begin to fade away.

For the second quarter of 2019 Kuo estimated iPhone shipments will be ranging in 34-37 million units slightly inflated than the market consensus of 30-35 million units, these numbers are still present a declination of about 14 percent on year-over-year basis, but compared to 29 percent drop in the first quarter the second quarter rate is far better.

Kuo predicts the improvements will continue into the second half of 2019 as long as the trade tensions between the US and China are not developed to the worst, with iPhone shipments compared to the second half of 2018 likely to be flat thanks to trade-in programs, more replacement demand, and increased market share in Europe.

Kuo remains his expectation in overall 2019 of 188-192 million iPhones.


Data source via MacRumors