Analyst: Apple iPhone 6s/Plus sales expectations are ‘unrealistically high’

“Apple investors should reset their expectations for iPhone 6S sales, which are currently too high, Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves said in a research note Wednesday,” Patrick Seitz reports for Investor’s Business Daily. “‘Near-term expectations for iPhone sales remain unrealistically high,’ Hargreaves said. ‘Anecdotal evidence suggests demand for iPhone 6S is lower than demand for iPhone 6.'”

“Apple’s statement Monday that first-weekend iPhone 6S sales are on pace to beat last year’s record first-weekend iPhone 6 sales likely is more about supply than demand, he said,” Seitz reports. “‘The preponderance of data points suggests that demand for the iPhone 6S is lower than it was for the iPhone 6, possibly meaningfully so,’ Hargreaves said. ‘This includes Google search data, device shipment times, third-party surveys, a lack of comments from carriers, and a lack of quantitative comment on pre-orders in Apple’s statement.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Anecdotal evidence and Google searches are not reliable indicators of demand.

Last September, Hargreaves advised selling AAPL shares around $100 ahead of Apple’s iPhone event which unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Apple then proceeded to sell over 173 million iPhones in the three quarters since Hargreaves issued his advice and currently trades some 14% higher than when he issued his call to sell.

In January 2013, Hargreaves advised that the high-end market for smartphones and tablets was going to be saturated sooner than expected and that would lead to poor growth for Apple. Hargreaves opined, based on what (Google searches? Anecdotal evidence?) we don’t know, that demand for what he termed “incremental” hardware improvements was “waning” or that, basically, he did not believe that people would continue to upgrade to new iPhones.

In short, why anybody listens to anything Andy Hargreaves has to say about Apple, given his history of Apple-related predictions, is beyond comprehension.

How many times are fickle, memory-impaired investors going to scatter when Andy screams “wolf?”


  1. Now, let’s see, On one hand, Tim Cook says that sales of the 6S are ahead of the 6. On the other hand, a dumbass analyst, with a history of failed predictions, says they aren’t. Hmmmm. Whom to believe, whom to believe, whom to believe…

  2. the problem with aapl as ‘the mouth’ Jim Cramer explained years ago vs other stocks is that it is so easy to manipulate aapl as Apple is so popular FUD is instantly picked up by all the news outlets. This together with Apple’s well known tight lipness in answering FUD means it’s a great stock (the greatest?) to manipulate.

  3. Amazon way up. Apple down. I pretty much think that says it all about AAPL. I don’t know if iPhone projections are too high because I can’t see the future, but investors obviously think they’re too high and their ready to dump AAPL at the earliest chance they get. Amazon came out with inexpensive products with very little fanfare and the stock simply climbed. Apple held some big event with 7000 attendees and a singing group. So what? It did absolutely nothing for Apple except send the stock down some more.

    It doesn’t matter what Apple does, the stock will continue to sputter. I don’t think investors are listening to analysts. I think they don’t trust Tim Cook’s management. I do, but that really doesn’t matter, does it. I buy my few shares when I can, get some dividends and that’s it. It doesn’t stop the stock from sucking.

    1. m7-48,
      Sorry but you are mistaking investors (in the company) with stock specualtors who only care that the stock bounces so they can make money NOW.
      Once you understand those two, you see why Apple bounces so much, yet keeps going up.

  4. We do have to be careful as investors that the patients do not run the asylum.
    Lets not forget that being too exuberant on sales can kill a great quarter, year, whatever. Just go back to the last quarter when Apple had a killing quarter, one for the history books, and was killed for a few weeks because of too much expectations.
    Same thing can happen again. Its better to have real expectatuons than unrealistic ones. Analysts and the tech press have an issue with veracity. There isnt any accountability anymore. In the past if you were wrong as often as these people are, they would not a have a job in the business ever again. But today, they get rewarded with a bonus and page views. A crazy world we live.

  5. Well I dunno about the rest of the world markets but in canada the carriers are gouging us now that they can’t require 3 year contracts anymore. So because of this they’re all now charging $400 for the entry level 16GB 6s!! Can you effing believe it?
    When the exchange rate was near par and the carriers weren’t being such greedy f’ers, entry level was $200 like US.
    I wish apple could do something about it!

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