Apple’s shares were under pressure in trading on Wednesday (Sept. 20) after a Wall Street firm said preorders for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are weak.
According to a report, Rosenblatt Securities Analyst Jun Zhang said that new research indicates iPhone 8 preorders are a lot lower than preorders for both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 6.
“We understand many customers could be waiting for the iPhone X, but we are concerned iPhone 8/8 Plus sell-through could bring some headwind,” wrote the analyst. He said that in China, the research implies that around 1.5 million iPhone 8 devices were preordered on JD.com during the first three days of availability. In comparison, the iPhone 7 had 3.5 million preorders in the same time frame.
What’s more, Rosenblatt said iPhone 8 preorder levels at China Mobile are around 1 million, compared to 2.5 million for the iPhone 7 and 3.5 million for the iPhone 6 during the first three days of availability for those devices. The analyst said feedback in the U.S. also implies preorder volume is lower than past iterations of the iPhone, perhaps due to the price, noted the report.
With the launch of the iPhone 8 last week, Piper Jaffray warned that consumers aren’t too giddy about the device. “We surveyed [more than] 400 U.S. iPhone users and found that 16 percent expect to upgrade to a new iPhone this fall, compared to 15 percent last year, while 24 percent will ‘maybe’ upgrade [versus] 29 percent last year,” Piper Jaffray Analyst Michael Olson wrote in a research report according to news from CNBC. “We also found that the [percentage] of iPhone users on a version two years or older (at time of upgrade) is almost identical (66 percent versus 67 percent) compared to our 2016 survey.”
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