The annual AAPL iPhone ‘pump ‘n’ dump’ season has begun

Every year we hear the same thing. Apple is doing really well, and then ‘bang’ someone reports weak sales and the whole machine slows down again. This year’s no different, but I won’t be linking to the propaganda.

What’s the story?

Apple has already warned that iPhone sales in the current quarter may be impacted by component supply shortages.

Yet a fresh report citing the usual anonymous (and therefore unverifiable) sources claims suppliers are being warned that Apple expects iPhone 13 sales to fade a little this year, in part due to the new Covid-19 variant making consumers a little more cautious, or something.

We have no way of verifying these unattributed claims, of course.

And they do feel a little shaky given weeks and weeks of new reports citing new sales records in multiple nations, including those still impacted by pandemic restrictions.

They also feel a little questionable given that carriers are offering substantial deals on iPhones (though not every deal seems to be a good one). Add to this the fact that CyberMonday and Black Friday saw brisk sell through of Apple Watch and AirPods in the U.S. and it seems to me that Apple is selling a lot of iPhones.

What to believe?

I think the best retort I’ve seen to these claims comes from Horace Dediu at Asymco, who wrote on Twitter:

“Bloomberg reporting that nobody wants an iPhone because everybody wants an iPhone. This year’s lack of interest in the most popular product in the world is happening even earlier than usual.”

Bloomberg reporting that nobody wants an iPhone because everybody wants an iPhone. This year’s lack of interest in the most popular product in the world is happening even earlier than usual.

— Horace Dediu (@asymco) December 2, 2021

He’s right.

Cast your mind back just 12-months and you may recall a similar report (from the same source as yesterday’s) claiming soft iPhone sales. You can even find them in 2015.

It’s an annual event.

Learning from history

Now, we know that Apple’s subsequent results announcement last year set new records, and we also know the company has pretty much warned us not to expect quite the same spike this year due to component problems, but I have to say that on the evidence so far it seems unlikely interest in iPhones has declined to anything like the extent of the current alarmist report.

But Apple stock has been setting new records recently. Which means anyone who sold the stock at the end of trading yesterday will probably make a tidy sum when they buy it back for cheaper later today.

Something about the latest report doesn’t feel right.

As Dediu also wrote:

Apple does not discuss demand with suppliers, or anyone else for that matter. It’s so transparently false that it shows they aren’t even trying very hard.

— Horace Dediu (@asymco) December 2, 2021

Indeed, if you check the latest Statcounter data you’ll see a one-point climb in iOS marketshare since September, and while this doesn’t really tell us much, it does suggest millions of iPhone users getting online. It does also show a three unit decline in Android share.

What it might mean

Does this hint that a lot of people are switching to iOS? I don’t know, but do think it suggests that demand for smartphones has declined – but that doesn’t mean demand for iPhones has. Perhaps the reduced component sales are not those to Apple?

Perhaps the source for this information is not sufficiently highly placed and took a guess? Perhaps someone just wanted to get paid for the story?

Tim Cook spent a lot of time discussing Apple’s approach to COVID-19

It would be far easier to test these claims against an attributed source. Perhaps it doesn’t matter – we’ve seen this kind of action make Wall Street Wail ever since Apple introduced iPhone – or iMac, come to that.

In other news, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives today raised his Apple price target to $200 from $185 citing his own checks showing ‘much stronger than expected’ demand in China and the U.S. Someone’s gonna get rich on this latest AAPL stock dump, I imagine.

I wonder which reality will turn out to be more true?

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