Apple, Samsung: Canaccord Cuts Smartphone View; Nokia, BBRY Sales Still ‘Soft’
By Tiernan Ray
Canaccord Genuity’s Mike Walkley today cut his estimates for smartphone sales, writing that his calls to wireless stores in the U.S., and his surveys globally, suggest sales of smartphones were “slightly softer” in June after a strong May, and that “We believe the flagship or high-end smartphone innovation curve has slowed, resulting in slower high-tier smartphone growth and an increasing sales mix of mid-tier smartphones.”
Walkley cut his smartphone estimate for this year to 959 million units form a prior 979 million, and cut his 2014 shipment estimate to 1.25 billion units from 1.29 billion units.
Walkley’s “checks” suggest that the mix of sales is shifting to cheaper models of the older flagship phones, and also to lower-cost devices by Chinese manufacturers:
Our June monthly surveys indicated softer global flagship smartphone sales in developed markets versus prior expectations, particularly in Europe, and an increasing mix of discounted $300-400 legacy models from Western OEMs. For example, our surveys indicated more affordable sub $400 Samsung Galaxy S IIIs and iPhone 4s continued to sell better than our expectations, while the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4 sold below our expectations. Further, our global market analysis indicates very strong low- and mid-tier Android smartphone sales from Chinese OEMs, as consumers continue to upgrade from 2G feature phones.
He notes that recent results from chip makers Spreadtrum ( SPRD) and MediaTek ( 2454TW) support the notion “mid-tier” smartphones running Google‘s ( GOOG) Android software are gaining ground.
Walkley cut his price target on Apple ( AAPL) to $530 from $560, while reiterating a Buy rating, after cutting his fiscal 2014 estimate to 173 million iPhone units from a prior 181 million units, up from 140 million units this year. He cut his 2013 EPS estimate to $39.29 per share in profit from $40.12, and cut his fiscal ’14 view to $44.04 per share from $46.80.
Still, Apple and Samsung Electronics ( 005930KS) remained dominant in the U.S. in June, he believes:
Samsung and Apple maintained top share of the U.S. smartphone market. In fact, our carrier store surveys indicated the Samsung GS4 was the top-selling smartphone at Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobile and #2 selling smartphone at AT&T behind the iPhone 5. Other top selling models included the iPhone 5 at all four tier-1 carriers, the HTC One at AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile, and the Galaxy S III at Verizon.
But sales of Nokia‘s ( NOK) Lumia portfolio, running Microsoft‘s ( MSFT) Windows Phone operating system, and sales of BlackBerry ( BBRY) devices, continued to be “soft”:
Our June wireless store surveys indicated overall soft Lumia sales despite positive reviews for the entry-level Lumia 521 at T-Mobile and declining sales of the high-end Lumia 928 at Verizon. Despite gradual momentum for the Windows Phone ecosystem in the U.S. market, our surveys indicated consumers still mostly enter retail stores with the intent to purchase either an iPhone or an Android smartphone, resulting in Windows smartphone sales trailing these two ecosystems by a wide margin […] Our global analysis indicated tempered sales for higher-end Lumia smartphones as these high-end devices face an ever shortening product cycle. However, our surveys indicated solid sales for the mid-tier Lumia 520 and 620 series smartphones, as the Windows Phone ecosystem gradually gains momentum in lower-tier smartphone market segments. However, we believe sell in growth of lower-priced Lumia models should slow due to stable sales levels following initial channel inventory builds. Due to our Lumia sales mix weighted more towards the lower-end Lumia devices, we believe our June quarter Lumia ASP estimate of 167 euro is below consensus […] our U.S. June surveys indicated declining sales trends for the QWERTY Q10 smartphone post a tepid launch at Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile. While many store reps we spoke with indicated some initial interest and sales for the Q10 into BlackBerry’s installed base of QWERTY handset users during launch, overall consumer interest for the Q10 appears to have weakened the past several weeks. In addition, our U.S. surveys indicated minimal consumer interest in and sales of the Z10 smartphone. Our global surveys indicate ongoing slow sales of BlackBerry smartphones with sharply declining sales of BlackBerry 7 devices. In fact, our global surveys indicated continued rapidly declining demand for legacy BB7 devices post the BB10 launch and BlackBerry’s announcement to support BBM on competing platforms. Now that Android and iOS will support BBM, we anticipate a sharp decline in BB7 consumer sales, particularly in emerging markets, as consumers upgrade older BB7 devices to affordable Android smartphones with their BBM networks intact.
Shares of Apple are down 4 cents at $422.31, shares of BlackBerry are off 37 cents, or 3.9%, at $9.26, and shares of Nokia are off 9 cents, or 2%, at $4.13.
Copyright 2013 Dow Jones & Company, |
