Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
- UBS surveyed around 8,000 smartphone owners in the US, UK, China, Germany, Japan, and India, and found the overall 12-month forward-purchase intent had fallen to the lowest level since it started conducting the surveys.
- "We continue to see extending device lifetimes, weak near-term purchasing intent and with these issues compounded by the disruption Huawei faces, we forecast smart-phone units declining 7% in 2019E," UBS said.
- The findings spell bad news for Apple in particular.
- Watch Apple trade live here.
Feeling less than jazzed about the latest smartphone update? You're not the only one.
UBS recently surveyed around 8,000 smartphone users in the US, UK, China, Germany, Japan, and India, and the findings spell bad news for many of the major players in the smartphone market. Specifically:
- UBS found the overall 12-month forward-purchase intent, a sign of whether respondents were looking to buy a new phone in the next year, had fallen to the lowest level since it started conducting the surveys.
- That, coupled with the disruption surrounding Huawei, led UBS to cut its forecast for smartphone units in 2019 by 7%.
In particular, the charts spell bad news for Apple. To be clear, Apple is still a UBS analyst pick, with a price target of $225, versus the current price of around $180. But it still faces the following problems:
- UBS says that on its latest supply-chain analysis, it thinks iPhone procurement volumes in the first half will be down 32% year-on-year.
- The percent of people planning to buy an iPhone has fallen in the US. Android has now overtaken Apple as the most retentive brand. Apple probably can't raise prices anytime soon. And it's lost some of its allure as an aspirational brand.
- And in China, Apple's status as a trusted brand has taken a hit, its retention rate has dropped, and the percent of people planning to buy an iPhone in China has dropped sharply.
To the charts: