Rosenblatt Securities downgraded Apple to sell from neutral Monday, citing the iPhone XS as one of the worst-selling phone models in the company’s history.
“We do not think Apple is a short (the company has plenty of cash and a meaningful stock buy back program); however, we believe Apple will face fundamental deterioration over the next six to 12 months,” Rosenblatt analyst Jun Zhang wrote.
Not all analysts are as bearish ahead of Apple’s (AAPL) Q3 earnings report coming at the end of the month.
Rene Ritchie, lead analyst of the tech review platform iMore, tells Yahoo Finance’s YFi AM the tech giant has been “misunderstood by the Street for years.”
At its March 25 event Apple unveiled Apple TV Plus, as well as its Apple News Plus news subscription and Apple Arcade gaming services. The announcement left many people unsure if these services will be a hit.
These services “aren’t debuting until September,” Ritchie told Yahoo Finance. “We’re probably in a bit of a lull between the announcement and the rollout.”
‘It’s not like Samsung, Google or Amazon are throwing out all new devices’
The lack of new hardware was another top concern for attendees at the March 25 event as iPhone sales continue to disappoint. Rosenblatt Securities said new iPhone sales will disappoint, while sales growth of the iPad, HomePod, AirPod and Watch will likely slow down. IMore remains optimistic.
“There’s occasionally bumps in the road like the HomePod or other devices like that,” Ritchie said. “Pretty much everything that they’ve done, every major product including the Apple Watch, now AirPods, which have become a meme, have gone on to be successful and in many ways redefine their product category.”
Ritchie attributes his optimism to the fact that Apple products “really work together and solved a real need for me” that other companies like Microsoft could not seem to master.
He goes on to say that Apple is not being left behind in the competition: “it’s not like Samsung and Google (GOOG) or Amazon (AMZN) are throwing out all new devices.”
Source: yahoo