JPMorgan Tops Apple (AAPL) Stock Price Target to $425, Sales in China Jumped 225% in Q2 2020

UTC by Bhushan Akolkar · 3 min read
JPMorgan Tops Apple (AAPL) Stock Price Target to $425, Sales in China Jumped 225% in Q2 2020
Photo: Apple Inc

Offering deep discounts helped Apple to top its iPhone sales in China during Q2 2020. The Chinese shopping festival last month and Apple’s offering of the cheaper iPhone SE made the smartphone best-selling during the second quarter.

Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock has jumped in the pre-market trading on Wednesday, July 29. Now AAPL is up 0.53%, at $375. Yesterday, Apple announced that it was the fastest emerging smartphone brand in China during Q2 2020.

The Cupertino-based smartphone giant managed to buckle down all the slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Apple’s launch of a cheaper iPhone SE variant helped to fuel sales. At the same time, deep discounts and the rising popularity of the iPhone 11 played a big role.

During the period between April to June, the company’s sell-through volume in China was 7.4 million units. As per Counterpoint Research, the smartphone giant registered 32% year-on-year growth. Apart from Apple, only Huawei saw a rise in the sell-through volumes during Q2 2020 in China. Other local Chinese players like Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi registered significant declines. The overall smartphone market dropped 17% year-over-year during the same period.

During the Chinese shopping festival in June, Apple offered big discounts on iPhone which kept its sales momentum going. As per Counterpoint Research note, the cheaper and newly launched iPhone SE was among the top three best selling iPhones. In an email to CNBC, Flora Tang, research analyst at Counterpoint Research, wrote:

“iPhone 11 remains the best-selling model in China. iPhone 11 has consecutively led as the best-selling model in China since last September, which indicates the strong brand power of Apple amongst Chinese consumers”.

JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee has topped Apple (APPL) stock price target to $425 from the previous $365. “We believe investors looking for further upside have to focus on the longer-term earnings trajectory rather than expect near-term upside, as the likelihood of an earnings beat in F3Q (Jun) as well as strong early 5G cycle volumes (driving upside to calendar 2H20 estimates) appear to be priced in,” wrote Chatterjee.

Apple CEO Tim Cook to Testify for Anti-Trust Hearing

Later today, Apple CEO Tim Cook will testify before the House Antitrust Subcommittee. This comes at a time when Apple is facing criticism over its App Store. The App Store is the only way to install consumer software on an iPhone.

Detractors have challenged some of the inconsistent rules on the platform. Also, there are complaints that Apple taking 30% on digital transactions for app purchases is too-high. In the release of his prepared remarks by the committee, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote:

“The smartphone market is fiercely competitive, and companies like Samsung, LG, Huawei, and Google have built very successful smartphone businesses offering different approaches. Apple does not have a dominant market share in any market where we do business”.

Speaking about the detractors’ questions on software distribution and Apple’s work as a gatekeeper, Cook said:

“Clearly, if Apple is a gatekeeper, what we have done is open the gate wider. We want to get every app we can on the store, not keep them off”.

Along with Tim Cook, other big personalities from the tech space like Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will testify before the committee.

Business News, Editor's Choice, Market News, Mobile, News
Related Articles