As Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares sell off to “correction” territory, mostly on concerns about China sales, short sellers upped their bet against the stock by 4.7 million shares sold short to a total of 65 million for the period that ended August 14. Apple is the ninth most shorted stock on the Nasdaq.
Source: courtesy of Apple Inc.
Despite assurances of good China sales, put in an email from CEO Tim Cook to TV financial analyst Jim Cramer, Wall Street is anxious. The stock dropped from $123 a month ago to just above $103 recently. It subsequently has moved up to $105. Recent research from Gartner was not good for Apple or its major competition. Its experts wrote:
Gartner, Inc. said worldwide smartphone sales recorded the slowest growth rate since 2013 in the second quarter of 2015. Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users totaled 330 million units, an increase of 13.5 percent over the same period in 2014.
China was supposed to be the market that would help smartphone companies as their products saturated the United States and Europe. Gartner’s data show otherwise:
“China is the biggest country for smartphone sales, representing 30 percent of total sales of smartphones in the second quarter of 2015. Its poor performance negatively affected the performance of the mobile phone market in the second quarter,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. “China has reached saturation — its phone market is essentially driven by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers. Beyond the lower-end phone segment, the appeal of premium smartphones will be key for vendors to attract upgrades and to maintain or grow their market share in China.”
Apple continues to gain on Samsung in market share, but China sales may have become a zero sum game.
In its most recent quarter, Apple’s Greater China sales rose 112% year over previous year to $13.2 billion. The move up was the engine for Apple’s overall sales increase of 33% to $49.6 billion. The market expects no less when Apple reports numbers for the current quarter.
If Apple misses its numbers in China, short sellers will have made a good bet.
ALSO READ: Oppenheimer’s 7 Bull Market Leaders to Buy After the Sell-Off
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