Earlier this week, the Apple stock closed at an all time peak, but it appears that not everyone has such a positive outlook. An UBS analyst have downgraded its stock over concerns of its growth.

Apple stock downgraded by UBS since its growth faces pressure

UBS analyst David Vogt recently downgraded the Cupertino based giant’s stock from Buy to Neutral. Although, he also raised the price target from 180 US Dollars to 190 US Dollars. According to the analyst, the company was downgraded due to its “given persistent softness in developed markets and data that indicates growth is likely to remain under pressure.” The news also arrives as the iPhone maker gets closer to a whopping 3 trillion US Dollar market cap.

Furthermore, the move from UBS is partly due to Apple’s valuation. The company as well as other tech giants have raised their market caps by billions and have had their stocks prices rise to new highs. Vogt added that “While a premium is justified, expansion is unlikely given growth headwinds”. The announcement of the new Vision Pro also drove the stock higher last month, but this product isn’t arriving till next year.

So, the focus once again shifts to the brand’s most important product line, the iPhone. BUt UBS has raised concerns over long term growth for the iPhone as well. Vogt believes that the iPhone sold in some of the biggest markets like the US, China, and Europe have declined by over 7.5 percent year on year. However, there are others analysts that believe that the company is arriving at a massive sales cycle for the iPhone, with the upcoming iPhone 15 lineup.

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(Via)

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In a time when consumers around the world are extending their replacement cycle for smartphones, one smartphone manufacturer has managed to break the trend and achieve contrarian growth in sales. OnePlus, under the leadership of President Li Jie, has announced that it has achieved a year-on-year sales growth of 260% in 2023, making it the fastest-growing smartphone brand.

Li Jie attributes this success to the company’s dual-brand strategy and the release of three strong products, the OnePlus 11, OnePlus Ace 2, and OnePlus Ace 2V. These products have been praised for their strength, affordability, and popularity among consumers in the $300-$700 price range. Despite facing controversy and challenges, OnePlus has remained steadfast in its commitment to creating good products for its users.

In addition to thanking its users for their support, Li Jie has also promised more surprises from OnePlus in the coming days of 2023. This announcement comes as a refreshing break in an industry that has been struggling with declining sales due to factors such as the pandemic, and global recession.

OnePlus’ success can also be attributed to its strong online presence. The company’s official flagship store on JD.com and Tmall has seen a significant increase in visitors.

Overall, OnePlus’ contrarian growth in 2023 is a testament to the company’s commitment to innovation and providing quality products to its users. As the smartphone industry continues to face challenges, OnePlus has proven that it is possible to achieve success by staying true to its principles and delivering what consumers want.

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(Source)

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The founder of Realme has just shared some insights regarding the company’s future goals and even expressed his gratitude towards the customers for their support. He also shared a short speech regarding the 828 Fan Festival as well, so let’s have a look.

I'm happy to celebrate realme's fourth 828 Fan Festival with each of you. realme is now entering the second stage of growth, we will further refine our focus on targeted, long-term growth. More exceptional Number Series smartphones will come soon. #KeepItReal #realme828FanFest pic.twitter.com/EP60fbuqqr

— Sky Li (@skyli_realme) August 16, 2022

In a recent tweet, Sky Li stated that Realme will soon be celebrating its fourth 828 Fan Festival. He further added that this arrives as the Chinese smartphone maker is entering its second stage of growth. During this period, the brand will be focusing on refining its goals for long term growth and launch even more “exceptional Number Series smartphones” in the market soon.

For those unaware, the fourth 828 Fan Festival is set to kick off starting from 28th August 2022. But prior to this event, the founder of the company expressed his gratitude to the brand’s 140 million strong fans. Thus, the senior official also reaffirmed that the company will place more emphasis on product quality and market focus as well. It is planning on adopting a new strategy, which is dubbed “Simply Better.”

To put things simply, Realme is expanding its research and development by 58 percent compared to last year. Through this, it promises to deliver exceptional Number Series phones in the near future. These new models will arrive with a stylish package but with an accessible price tag to better appeal to the youth demographic.

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The global smartphone market in this year is expected to record its highest levels of growth since 2015. Shipments are projected to reach 1.38 billion units this year, marking a rise of 7.7 percent over last year.

According to an IDC report, the positive trend is expected to continue forward into the next year as well, with an expected year on year growth of 3.8 percent. The projected shipments for this period are said to be a total of 1.43 billion units. The report adds that this arrives as the world shifts towards 5G networking and 5G enabled handsets, while also retaining strong demand for low end and mid range 4G smartphones following last year’s pandemic that led to a decline in sales.

As per Anthony Scarsella, research manager with IDC, “2021 will represent the largest year-over-year growth the market has witnessed since 2015, as the shift towards 5G across all price tiers continues to accelerate. The 5G shift will also deliver peak smartphone ASPs in 2021 ($376, up 9.7% year over year) when compared to the remainder of the forecast period as costly 5G devices continue to replace LTE devices, which are also starting to drop in price, down 27% in 2021.”

Similarly, Ryan Reith, program vice president at IDC, added that “Smartphones are seeing competition for consumer spending from adjacent markets like PCs, tablets, TVs, and smart home devices, yet that hasn’t slowed the market’s path to recovery. The smartphone market returned to growth during the holiday quarter last year and since then we’ve only seen production from top suppliers ramp up. There continues to be a strong supply-side push toward 5G, and price points continue to drop as a result.”

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The Thailand smartphone market has showcased a huge potential for growth after the region recorded a year on year growth of 18 percent in terms of shipments in the first quarter of this year.

According to a Counterpoint Research report, there were multiple factors that supplemented this growth. This included the pent up demand that was carried forward from the final quarter of last year, which paired with an aggressive scheme and offers from smartphone brands and their channel brands, especially in the online mediums. While the region is recovering from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic from 2020, there is a healthy demand for smartphones by the consumers.

As per Senior Research Analyst Glen Cardoza, “The top six brands are aggressively trying to capture more market share but there are other brands at play as well. The declining volumes of Huawei and HONOR, and the upcoming Transsion brands like Infinix and TECNO are all variables that continue to add volatility to this strong smartphone market. Brands like Xiaomi and realme are trying hard to capitalize on their online prowess to improve their presence.”

Notably, the chip shortage has also affected this region as well, with shipments being behind and sales not taking advantage of the full potential of the market. Although, Thailand did see a 49 percent year on year surge in online sales in Q1 2021, with Chinese smartphone manufacturers taking the lead in this channel.

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With its entry into the 5G smartphone processor market, MediaTek has seen a surge in its revenue and overall market share. Now, the company recently announced that it brought in 1.32 billion US Dollars in revenue in April 2021 alone, marking a year on year growth of more than 70 percent.

According to an official announcement, the chipmaker announced that it recorded consolidated net sales of 36,572 million New Taiwan Dollar in the month of April. This roughly translates to about 1.32 billion US Dollars in revenue. Back in the same month last year, the company saw a revenue of 20,546 New Taiwan Dollar (roughly 735 million US Dollars), thus marking a growth of 78 percent year on year and 16,026 billion New Taiwan Dollar (roughly 573 million US Dollars).

Furthermore, the company also shared the consolidated net sales for the first three months along with April as well. Through this, we can observe that the company saw a year on year revenue growth of 77.63 percent, with the chip maker recording sales worth 144,605 New Taiwan Dollar (roughly 5.18 billion US Dollars) this year compared to 81,409 New Taiwan Dollar (roughly 2.91 billion US Dollars) earnings during the same period last year.

While MediaTek saw a strong growth year on year, it also saw a slight decline sequentially. Just a month prior, the company generated 40,147 million New Taiwan US Dollar (roughly 1.43 billion US Dollars) in revenue. This marks a slight decline of 8.91 percent month on month. Although, in an annual comparison, the company has still seen great growth.

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Realtek Semiconductor has just registered a record profit in the first quarter of this year. The news arrives as the Networking IC design specialist saw its net profits climb to a new high for the fourth consecutive quarter.

According to a DigiTimes report, the chip maker recorded net profits of 3.06 billion New Taiwan Dollars (109.2 million US Dollars) for the first quarter of this year. This marks a growth of 16.4 percent sequentially and a strong growth of 87.3 percent year on year. Realtek posted an overall revenue of 23.34 billion US Dollars in the first quarter of 2021, which is a rise of 5.7 percent on quarter that also marks a new record high.

The company further added that its April revenue decrease of about 3 percent on month to 7.81 billion New Taiwan Dollars. This was primarily due to the firm facing shortage in supplies. The company even notes that its orders from its clients still remain robust, although its supply is unable to catch up with its orders. Furthermore, Realtek has also seen its shipments be limited due to a tight foundry capacity, along with shortage of upstream components and other raw materials as well.

The company is also being optimistic regarding its sales prospects this year, as per the report, while it is also projecting the rise in sales for its Ethernet networking chips, switch controllers and Bluetooth chips on year in 2021. Although, its solutions related to TV are expected to remain flat this year. Realtek is expecting robust sales through the first half of 2022 as well, however, the tight foundry capacity isn’t expected to ease until after next year.

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A new report has revealed that Chinese smartphone brands like Xiaomi and Oppo have seen impressive growth in Western Europe in the first quarter of this year, while Huawei sees a slump in performance.

According to a recent tweet from Canalys, smartphone manufacturers from China have seen strong performance in the region in Q1 2021. The tweet even shared an image that showcased the market shares of various vendors as well as their year on year growth. Looking at this image, it is clear that Samsung leads the market with a sizeable 43 percent market share, followed by Apple that had a 24 percent market share. Xiaomi, Oppo, and Huawei rounded up the list.

While Xiaomi and Oppo have a relatively lower market share, with 15 percent and 4 percent respectively, than Samsung and Apple, both brands saw explosive growth in the region. Samsung and Apple saw a 49 percent and 28 percent growth respectively, while Xiaomi saw a notable 89 percent growth and Oppo saw a whopping 193 percent growth.  Huawei arrived last in the list with a mere 3 percent market share but its lower market share was due to its massive decline of 80 percent in the region while the other brands saw a positive performance.

Huawei’s decline is likely due to the various US sanctions that disrupted its supply chain and severely crippled its smartphone operations globally. This, in turn, led to its rivals like Oppo to try and fill in the vacuum left by Huawei. Meanwhile, Apple noted a strong quarter thanks to its larger iPhone 12 devices, as per Canalys.

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Huawei Technologies registered slight growth in its annual performance last year, despite suffering from various hurdles like the US sanctions. The company’s rotating Chairman, Ken Hu made the statement earlier today (23rd February 2021) at the Mobile World Congress 2021 event.

According to a Reuters report, the Chinese tech giant faced “extraordinary difficulties” last year. Despite this, its operations remained stable and relations with its partners remaining strong. Back in 2019, the company was placed in the Entity List (essentially an export blacklist) by the former US President Donald Trump, which prevented access from critical technologies made in the US. This, in turn, effected the brand’s ability to design and even source its own chipsets and other crucial components from vendors for its smartphone and telecom business.

The ban on Huawei was over national security risks, which the company had denied on multiple occasions. Recently, we had reported on CEO Ren Zhenfei hoping for the Biden administration to “harbor an open policy,” especially in regards to allow US firms to work with Huawei. The senior executive further added that the company saw positive growth and net profit as well last year.

Notably, China has already spent more than 260 billion Yuan (roughly 40.27 billion US Dollars) in building its 5G network, with Huawei being one of the key 5G equipment supplier. Furthermore, the brand will also be launching its new Mate X2 5G foldable smartphone in its home market soon, which will feature its proprietary Kirin processors. The device will target the ultra high end segment of the markets and starts from 17,999 yuan (roughly 2,788 US Dollars).

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MediaTek has just registered a significant surge in its revenue for the month of January this year. The tech giant saw a rise of nearly 80 percent from the same month back in 2019, marking its second highest monthly level of revenue in the company’s entire history.

According to a DigiTimes report, the company registered a revenue of 35.33 billion New Taiwan Dollars (roughly 1.26 billion US Dollars) for the month of January 2021, which is up by 78.3 percent from a year earlier and 9 percent rise sequentially as well. Furthermore, the chip maker is also expecting to see revenue growth of up to 8 percent, somewhere between 96.4 billion to 104.1 billion New Taiwan Dollars (roughly 3.44 to 3.71 billion US Dollars) for the first quarter of this year.

The growth was primarily backed by the surge in demand and popularity for 5G chips that powered smartphones, along with the growth in shipments of 4G smartphones as well as Chromebooks. The company’s overall mobile chip shipments are expected to see a substantial rise as well in this quarter, compared to the fourth and final quarter of last year, as per MediaTek CEO, Rick Tsai. MediaTek will also see its revenue surge in 2021 with its gross profit margin ranging somewhere between 43 percent to 44 percent. Notably, the company even generated a revenue of 322.15 billion New Taiwan Dollars (roughly 11.5 billion US Dollars) last year, marking a rcord high rise of 30.8 percent.

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A new report has revealed that about 223 million TVs are expected to be shipped this year. This marks a slight increase from the total TV shipments over the previous year, which faced a decline in due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

According to a TrendForce report (Via TheElec), 2021 will see a 2.8 percent high TV shipments in comparison to last year. The major reasons for the growth of the market are being attributed to the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic and major sporting events like the Tokyo Olympics. For those unaware, TV shipments faced a notable decline early on in the previous year due to the initial outbreak. Although, the industry made a slight recovery in the latter half of the same year.

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In 2020, about 217 million TVs were shipped across the globe, marking a decline of 0.3 percent from back in 2019. Furthermore, a few TV makers also had to push back the shipments of their offerings due to the shortages of chip supply in the fourth and final quarter of last year. However, TV shipments are expected to grow in 2021, with large sized TVs expected to grow even high this year.

Due to panel prices increasing and profitability per TV declining, TV manufacturers would turn towards large sized TVs, which would offer higher margins and better profits as well. The decrease in profitability affects TVs between the 32 inch and 55 inch models. Notably, shipments for 65 inch TVs grew by 23.4 percent year on year in the second half of 2020, while TVs over 70 inch saw a significant growth of 47.8 percent during the same period. TrendForce predicts that 65 inch or larger TVs will again see a rise of about 30 percent this year as well.

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The Indian smartphone market is showing signs of recovery as the market sees a growth of 8 percent to 50 million units in the third quarter of 2020. This marks an all time record for smartphone shipments in a single quarter.

According to a Canalys report, Xiaomi is still the market leader in the country and saw a growth of 9 percent to ship 13.1 million units during this period. Similarly, Samsung also saw a notable growth of 7 percent in Q3, with total shipments arriving at 10.2 million units. This had the South Korean tech giant regain its 2nd position from Vivo, which now stood 3rd with a total shipment of 8.8 million units with a growth of 19 percent.

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Other Chinese brands like Realme and Oppo rounded up the list with 8.7 million and 6.1 million units respectively. Adwait Mardikar, an analyst from Canalys stated that “The government, slowly but surely reducing restrictions on movement after a three month lockdown, has created the perfect atmosphere for sustained growth. While almost all vendors have shown positive shipment growth, the true winners are the online channels, who have been buoyed with a huge influx of devices ahead of the festive season. Ongoing sales at Amazon and Flipkart are a clear indication that despite the economic downturn, India’s penchant for a good smartphone, and a good bargain, remains intact.”

In other words, as the local market recovers as things normalize after the lockdowns that occurred earlier this year. Furthermore, recent launches paired with sales have also boosted the pent up demand in the nation. Even Apple has finally opened a new direct online store in India, which should broaden its strategy in regards to sales incentives and more. Although, its newly launched iPhone 12 series might be a “tough sell” this year, especially considering 5G networking is yet to be available for the mass market.

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The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has reported that the worldwide sales of semiconductors have grown in the month of August 2020. As per their report, the sales reached 36 billion US Dollars.

According to TheElec report, the growth marks a 4.9 percent increase year on year from back in 2019 during the same month. Furthermore, this also showcases the growth of 3.6 percent from back in July 2020. Notably, the rise arrives as the seventh consecutive month where the industry has seen growth, with the most noticeable surge being seen in America.

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In the US, sales rose by 23.6 percent year on year, reaching 7.92 billion US Dollars in the month of August. Similarly, other regions like China and the Asia Pacific also witnessed a growth of 3 percent and 2.1 percent respectively from the same month from back in 2019. However, despite the overall growth, the semiconductor sales in Europe declined by 10.1 percent, with Japan also seeing a drop of 1.4 percent as well.

Although, all other regions saw growth when compared to July 2020, with the Asia Pacific/All Others seeing a 5.6 percent growth, and Europe sales rising by 5.5 percent. China, the Americas, and Japan saw an increase of 2.9 percent, 2.6 percent, and 1.5 percent, respectively. But SIA also noted that it expected to see a negative trend from the remainder of the year, as uncertainties remain high from the coming months.

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