Last year this time, it was supposed to be all doom and gloom for Apple. There were reports about the iPhones XS, XS Max and XR not doing well and the Cupertino-based tech giant was ‘struggling’, according to most analysts. Now, an analyst says that the turnaround of Apple has been CEO Tim Cook’s “finest hour.” A report by CultofMac quotes Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush, who says that Apple had a “historic year” in 2019 and is set to have a great 2020 as well.
The CultofMac report cites an investor note by Ives, where he wrote, “A year ago Cupertino was facing major Herculean-like challenges around lagging China demand, tariff escalation on the horizon, increasing competition on smartphones, and trailing Samsung and others in the key 5G race,” Ives writes. He further said that investors thought that Apple’s growth story was over.
Ives says that Cook turned it around with critical decisions like settling long-standing dispute with Qualcomm, acquiring Intel’s modem business for a billion dollars, carefully managing to ‘sort’ the China problem, and of course, the launch of iPhone 11.
For 2020, Ives is overtly optimistic for Apple as he says that, “To this point, we believe 200 million units could be the starting point for 5G Apple smartphone demand as roughly 350 million iPhones within the 900 million installed base of Cupertino are currently in the window of an upgrade opportunity.”
Clearly, Ives believes that a 5G iPhone could be a definite game changer for Apple. He also says that Apple will continue to see more growth in China particularly with Huawei still struggling with its various issues in the smartphone industry.
Apple, as per several rumours and leaks, is set to launch as many as five iPhones in 2020. Reports have indicated that the first iPhone of the year will be a really affordable variant, which is being touted as the successor to the iPhone SE.
