DigiTimes
Munster: 4 more reasons Apple got clobbered Wednesday
December 5, 2012: 2:59 PM ETPiper Jaffray's chief Apple enthusiast comes to the defense of the embattled stock
FORTUNE -- With Apple's (AAPL) shares off more than 6% Wednesday, there was no shortage of theories about what was driving all the selling. We highlighted one -- Apple's failure to issue a special dividend -- earlier today. In a note to clients a few hours later, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster addressed four more:
- Digitimes Article Appears To Be Misinterpreted. A Digitimes article from today suggests that iPhone 5 is selling well based on comments from wireless chipset providers and seems to suggest upside to the Street's 43-45 million estimate for December. In the same article, Digitimes is suggesting a 20% q/q decline in Apple's demand for parts and components in March. We believe this 20% decline is to be expected coming off of a launch quarter and do not believe it is an indication of how units might trend in March. As an example, if Apple ordered 52 million iPhones from the channel in December and 48 million are sold, that implies a 4 million unit channel fill and 41.5 million units ordered from Apple in March. That would mean 44.5 million units would be available for sale in March, which would mean our 43 million iPhone estimate for March is well within the range of probability.
- Technicals Suggest Downside Largely Priced In. Apple's simple 50 day moving average is nearing its 200 day moving average, which is a negative technical sign. Based on our conversation with Piper Jaffray Technical Analyst Craig Johnson, we believe that for this technical indication, most of the damage has been done to AAPL, but there could be a worst case additional 10% move to the downside which could be the next meaningful area of support.
- Margin Requirements Being Raised. We also note that CNBC is reporting that COR Clearing is raising margin requirements on Apple from 30% to 60%. While we don't know what percentage of AAPL shares are on bought on margin, we do not believe the requirement change has anything to do with the fundamental health of AAPL.
- China Mobile to Carry Nokia Lumia. Nokia reported today that it would launch its Lumia handset on China Mobile by the end of the year. We believe some investors have speculated that China Mobile will carry the Lumia instead of the iPhone. We do not believe this is true and note that China Mobile already carries multiple smartphones from multiple vendors. We continue to expect China Mobile to add the iPhone in the back half of 2013.
Apple closed Wednesday at $538.79. Munster is sticking with his price target of $900 a share.
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Is DigiTimes trying to kill the iPad 2's Christmas sales?
No, but the steady flow of rumors about a new iPad just around the corner aren't helping
Remember what happened to iPhone 4 sales last summer? They hit a wall in mid-July, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, when "speculation" that Apple was about to release a new iPhone, "hit extreme highs."
Now we're in the middle of what's shaping up as Apple's (AAPL) biggest holiday season ever, and the same thing MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 12, 2011 8:10 AM ET -
'Pure' PC makers reportedly fleeing the tablet market
Likely to leave the field to Apple, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, according to DigiTimes
Taipei-based DigiTimes, which has been churning out rumors from Asian electronics parts suppliers as fast as its correspondents can type, reported Thursday that unnamed "sources from upstream supply chain" believe that PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard (HPC), Dell (DELL), Acer and Asustek will "gradually phase out" of the tablet market.
According to DigiTimes:
With Amazon offering its Kindle Fire at MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 18, 2011 6:25 AM ETPosted in: Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Dell, DigiTimes, Hewlett-Packard, iPad, Kindle Fire, Nook, Nook Simple Touch -
Remember those rumored iPad production cuts? Nevermind.
Apple seems to be controlling inventory, not reacting to a slow-down in sales
Apple's (AAPL) stock price fell sharply last week after some confused reports out of China and Taiwan regarding the company's communications with its supply chain. The first report was that Apple had cut back orders 10% to 15% on parts for the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S because, according to Taipei-based DigiTimes, "sales of the iPhone 4S MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 17, 2011 10:30 AM ET -
Apple shares hit hard by reports of production cuts
Rumors of a slowdown in iPhone 4S sales called "off base." iPad may be a different story
[UPDATE: As several readers pointed out, Apple's share price was also hit Wednesday, along with the rest of the market, by the news out of Europe, and by the end of the day had suffered less than the NASDAQ, which fell 3.88% to Apple's 2.7%. Thursday, however, was a different story. By early afternoon, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 9, 2011 10:56 AM ETPosted in: Apple, Ashok Kumar, Brian White, DigiTimes, Gene Munster, iPad, iPhone, Piper Jaffray, Ticonderoga -
DigiTimes: Apple will ship 86.4 million iPhones this year
Up nearly 82% from 2010's 47.5 million, overtaking Nokia for the first time
DigiTimes, a Taipai-based daily that keeps as close tabs as any publication on the Asian supply chain, posted its estimates Tuesday for where it thinks the top 10 smartphone manufacturers will be at year's end.
Although Apple (AAPL) will have shipped the most units -- 86.4 million, up 81.9% from 2010 -- according to DigiTimes analyst Luke Lin, it's being MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 6, 2011 8:12 AM ET -
Why would HP make more TouchPads to sell at a loss?
No, they don't plan to produce "one last run" in order to make it up in volume
Can you spot the dissemblance in the announcement posted Monday on Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) The Next Bench blog?
Despite announcing an end to manufacturing webOS hardware, we have decided to produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand. We don't know exactly when these units will be available or how many we'll get, and MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Aug 31, 2011 11:51 AM ETPosted in: Apple, DigiTimes, Hewlett-Packard, HP, iPad, Manufacturing, Public relations, supply chain, Tablets, TouchPad, WebOS -
Today in Tech: Nintendo's Wii U
Fortune's curated selection of the day's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you every day.
* Nintendo pulled the wraps off its highly-anticipated new home videogame console, the Wii U. During the press event, the company emphasized the actual gaming experience over hardware specifications, though it was pretty quickly established that games would be in high-definition, a first for the company's home consoles. The MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jun 8, 2011 10:19 AM ETPosted in: Apple, comScore, DigiTimes, Hussein Fazal, Jack Dorsey, Los Angeles Times, Nintendo, Steve Jobs, TechCrunch, Twitter, Video game console, Vinod Khosla, Wii -
Report: Apple to absorb quake costs
Paying whatever it takes to ramp up to a reported ship rate of 4 million iPads per month
Here's what Apple COO Tim Cook might call another "fantastic use" for the company's nearly $60 billion cash reserves.
According to a report Thursday in DigiTimes, the Taipei-based daily that is a rich source of electronics supply-chain rumors, Apple (AAPL) has agreed to absorb all the additional component costs created by the Japanese earthquake MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 31, 2011 10:53 AM ET -
Today in Tech: new BlackBerry phone details, Groupon IPO
A curated selection of the day's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web.
Groupon is moving ahead with an initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to happen some time this spring. The daily deals site, which just recently raised a record $950 million, now values itself at $15 billion. (New York Times)
The launch for News Corp's heavily-publicized iPad newspaper, the Daily, has reportedly been pushed back several weeks MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jan 14, 2011 8:34 AM ETPosted in: Apple, AT&T, Atrix, BlackBerry, Boy Genius Report, daily, DigiTimes, Groupon, Intel, IOS (Apple), ipad newspaper, Nvidia Tegra, Research in Motion, RIM, Verizon iPhone, Xoom
