"Apple's Most Knowledgeable" analyst Ming-Chi Kuo: Expects no significant change in iPhone 16 orders

On Thursday, Tianfeng International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo stated that despite rumors of increased iPhone 16 orders following the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, recent financial conference calls from Apple's main suppliers, TSMC and Largan Precision, suggest that orders for the iPhone 16 may not have increased. TSMC stated, "We have not seen a sudden increase in sales." While Largan Precision indicated, "Orders for high-end models this year are similar to last year." Ming-Chi Kuo explained that some suppliers have seen an increase in iPhone 16 orders for the second half of 2024. However, from the perspective of EMS/assembly, the number of iPhone 16 orders for the second half of 2024 has not changed significantly, standing at around 87 million units, slightly lower than the number of iPhone 15 orders in the second half of last year, which was around 91 million units. If the order trends of TSMC, Largan Precision, and assembly manufacturers are consistent, this trend should be quite indicative. As for the increase in iPhone 16 orders from certain suppliers, it may be related to specific reasons within individual industries or components. Ming-Chi Kuo pointed out that the launch of Apple Intelligence is generally considered the reason for the increase in iPhone 16 orders. However, currently, Apple Intelligence is only available in beta for testing by U.S. users in the second half of the year, and Apple Intelligence Siri only supports English. Regardless of whether Apple Intelligence alone can drive upgrade demand, as this is another significant issue, it may be overly optimistic for consumers to expect to purchase the new iPhone 16 for testing the beta version of Apple Intelligence in the second half of this year. On Thursday, Apple's stock price fell by over 2%, marking the second consecutive trading day of over 2% decline, underperforming the S&P 500 index