
Apple's stock loses over $160B as analysts forecast smartphone decline - simula67
http://www.neowin.net/news/apples-stock-loses-over-160b-as-analysts-forecast-smartphone-decline
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nikdaheratik
It's dropped about $30/share in the last 6 months according too the article,
which of course left out any data on sales (which are solid), profits (also
solid) or anything besides this one report on China sales. The run up and drop
could entirely be explained by the Apple Watch not selling as well as some
investors hoped. Is this really news or just someone trying to boost their
short share activity a bit before cashing in?

In other words: pointless trading article is pointless.

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an_account
Why would the smartphone be in decline?

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p4wnc6
The article only mentions that forecasts for the _increase_ of cell-phone
demand in China is around 14%, whereas that same market experienced 27% growth
from 2014 to now (we'd have to follow the article's sources to confirm this or
disentangle the exact forecast and measurement).

So decline in this setting means a decline _in growth_ \-- that _growth is
slowing down_. Whether that remains the longer term trend is still a hard call
to make, and the article makes no comments about growth in other geographic
markets.

It's definitely disingenuous of the article's author to make generic
statements about all smartphones or statements that at first blush seem to be
about the general worldwide demand for smartphone technology. But this article
isn't really a robust analysis of anything; just clickbait to feed
confirmation bias of market pessimists and spread more FUD to befuddled
mainstream news patron types.

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joezydeco
This sounds more like market saturation - nobody is literally throwing their
iOS devices out and going back to flip phones.

Apple's subtle shift towards leasing phones instead of carrier-subsidized
purchases hints to me that they already know what's up in the marketplace.

