Bad News for Apple? Analyst Predicts Global iPhone Sales to "Stagnate"

• Apple Inc. AAPL has gained 1.5 percent this year, even despite a 5.4 percent decline in the past month.
• Mirae Asset Securities analyst Jinho Cho recently reversed analysis that iPhone shipments would rise – saying now instead that the shipments would "stagnate" in Q3.
• Cho said that the sales slump was mainly due to a delay in the new iPhone launch and deteriorating consumer sentiment in China.

• Apple Inc. AAPL has gained 1.5 percent this year, even despite a 5.4 percent decline in the past month.
• Mirae Asset Securities analyst Jinho Cho recently reversed analysis that iPhone shipments would rise – saying now instead that the shipments would "stagnate" in Q3.
• Cho said that the sales slump was mainly due to a delay in the new iPhone launch and deteriorating consumer sentiment in China.

When Apple announces its new iPhones next week, a Mirae Asset Securities analyst predicted that the announcement is likely to fall flat. In fact, Jinho Cho predicted that Apple's Q3 sales would be at 39 million units, down 17 percent on the quarter and flat year-over-year. This new forecast is 9 million units less than Cho's prior forecast, particularly the result of a delay in the new iPhone's launch.

Not only is the delay problematic, but Cho argued that, "the small functional differences between the new iPhone models (the iPhone 6S/6S+) and their predecessors (the iPhone 6/6+) could fail to stoke pent-up demand." Those differences include a higher-resolution camera and the Force Touch technology.

Further, China may prove to be a problem for Apple. Cho noted that, "consumer sentiment has recently been deteriorating in China, the world's largest iPhone market." Total smartphone demand will be just 9.15 million units in Q3, slightly down by 1.5 percent year-over-year.

Not only is this news not good for Apple, which derives more than 63 percent of its revenue from iPhones, but it will also "weigh on 3Q15 earnings at companies in Apple's supply chain."