Charles A. on Counterpoint: iPhone shipments in China grew 23% YOY in June quarter - 'Simply FAAANTASTIC jpb, Bart!!! We all owe you an enormous Thank You for your excellent and very time-consuming work!!!'
on Counterpoint: iPhone shipments in China grew 23% YOY in June quarter - '“what were Apple’s annual iPhone sales in China 2025 and projected to be for 2026? how long would it take for those 60M+ older iPhones to be upgraded? years?“ “In 2025, Apple sold an estimated 43.5 million to 44.5 million iPhones in mainland China, capturing a 16% volume share. For the full-year 2026, Apple is projected to grow its volume significantly to between 49 million and 51 million units (an approximate 12% to 15% increase), bucking the broader Chinese market decline due to its highly stable pricing strategy. Based on Apple’s annual sales velocity, it will take approximately 1.3 to 1.5 years for the 65 million+ older iPhones to fully recycle and upgrade through the ecosystem. Year-by-Year Upgrading Timeline • Year 1 (Late 2026 – Late 2027): The Core AI Wave (~45M to 50M Upgrades) The initial 12 months following the Q4 launch of local Apple Intelligence (via Alibaba’s Qwen) will absorb the vast majority of the upgrade pool. Tech-sensitive users holding onto premium older models (like the iPhone 13 Pro or iPhone 14 series) will trade in immediately to gain access to native localized AI features. • Year 2 (Late 2027 – Mid 2028): The Residual Long-Tail (~15M to 20M Upgrades) The remaining cohort consists of budget-conscious users or older demographics holding onto highly durable hardware (like the iPhone 11 or 12). These users do not upgrade for software features but will naturally age out of their devices over the subsequent 6 months due to battery degradation or apps dropping legacy iOS support. The Upgrade Velocity Bottleneck The timeline cannot happen overnight or within a single quarter because it is constrained by a physical supply ceiling. Even with high demand, Apple’s global supply chain allocations to mainland China cap maximum annual deliveries at around 50 million units. A portion of those 50 million new sales will also go to Android switchers, meaning the system physically requires more than a single calendar year to completely flush out and refresh 65 million legacy units.” ((Sounds pretty good to me, assuming the iPhone 18 and iPhone 19/20 lines prove as attractive as Gemini makes them out to be. Whether AI is or will truly be an upgrade or purchase decision maker is still yet to be proven, but it will be an interesting ride over the next 18-32 months, both from a hardware sales revenue standpoint and then a not so lagging Services standpoint. The breakdown of products and services by regions will be fascinating to observe.))'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'Darren: Good question. The AH spike in Intel’s share price was tempered by comments on the earnings conference call about an increase in the capex spend forecast. Intel may successfully make a market for itself with CPUs, now some GPUs as well as lower-margin chip demand in an environment of constrained production capacity. I’m not enamored with the company and see more productive areas for investment and total return in the AI era. I don’t think one needs to look far and wide to find them.'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'Hi Robert. Yes all those chats we had about defence stocks 4 years ago turned out to be very educational for me. I have played the sector twice now. Each time buying after negative sentiment and temporary declines over quarterly results. Sure enough sentiment changes, wars start, earnings beat and the stocks rise again and I take a good profit. One thing I have noticed is the big pull backs only last for a day or a few and then recover. The recoveries are much stickier – so it pays to be ready. I never get the negativity about defence stocks that comes around every quarter or two. Huge moats. They have massive ever growing backlogs from increasing sales to other countries. Free cash flow machines. Often dividend kings. They might be overvalued from time to time but equally they don’t deserve to be punished every 12 months or so.'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'A model railroad friend who worked for CSX at one time sold t-shirts (fundraiser for his dog’s medical expenses). It says “CSX – Tomorrow’s Freight Delivered Next Week” 🙂'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'I’m thinking (hoping) today’s selloff is sympathetic to the selloff of others in the AI sector, who are expanding capex, with no further discussion on AI revenue generation. That AI revenue wall looms larger and larger, and it growth seems to correspond with discoveries about Apple’s on device hardware initiatives (aka rumors). Apple’s strategy is the right one. Even if on site AI servers aren’t ready for prime time (all indication Mac Minis are the preferred platform TODAY). In two years Apple is going to own this market. Of course, that means Apple is going to own the on device market, and that means Apps as well.'
on Counterpoint: iPhone shipments in China grew 23% YOY in June quarter - 'Hi, Daniel, That’s part of the reason for the drop, but there’s also the AI over-exuberance back flow.'
on Counterpoint: iPhone shipments in China grew 23% YOY in June quarter - 'Positive news being overshadowed by Iran conflict escalation. At least as far as Apple stock price movement today.'
