| Cult of Mac

Analysts aren’t worried about long-term impact of coronavirus on Apple

By

money
Analysts think investors will need to weather the storm first, though.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

While it’s a distant second to the human impact of coronavirus, the outbreak of COVID-19 coronavirus in China has caused plenty of disruption for Apple and its manufacturers.

But although Apple has already had to rein in its quarterly projections as a result, analysts watching the Cupertino firm aren’t getting unduly concerned. The majority of firms remain bullish when it comes to Apple’s prospects for near-term growth.

Apple Stock Continues To Slide As Analysts Await The ‘Next Big Thing’

By

Stock continues to tank, but the ca
Stock continues to tank, but the ca

After months of steady growth, Apple stock hit an all-time high of $705.07 in late September, and it seemed there was no sign of stopping it from breaking through the $1,000 barrier and making Apple the world’s first trillion dollar company. Take a look at the market today, however, and it paints a very different picture.

Apple stock fell a whopping 25% in November, and on Friday, it hit a ten-month low. Today, shares dipped below the $400 mark. This is despite the recent launch of the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini, both of which appear to be selling incredible well. Can the Cupertino company put an end to this nasty slide? Analysts don’t think so.

Chart: While Competitors Sell 20x More Phones, Apple Makes Most Of The Industry’s Profit

By

post-60152-image-997d1f4531ac50cafad460b07ac78328-jpg

Are you wondering how a company like Nokia can, on the one hand, claim that it is selling more smartphones every day than the iPhone, and yet be kicking its CEOout the door like a mangy dog? These pie charts ought to make everything crystal clear.

Advisory firm Canaccord Genuity told investors to buy, buy, buy Apple stock on Tuesday, targeting Apple’s price at $356 per share… and to give investors an idea on why they were so excited about Apple’s prospects, they accompanied their note with the following observation: even though Apple only sold 17 million handsets in the first half of 2010, Apple has pulled in 39% of the mobile sector’s profit.

Meanwhile, Nokia, Samsung and LG sold 400 million phones last year — over twenty times as many handsets as Apple sold iPhones — and yet their profit was dwarfed by Apple’s in the same period.

As Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley notes, “[W]where most handset OEMs struggle to post a profit or even 10% operating margins… we estimate Apple boasts roughly 50% gross margin and 30%+ operating margin for its iPhone products.”

No wonder the boards of companies like Nokia are lopping off their key executives’ heads and bowling them out the door.