According to a latest review of market data by Mike Walkley from Canaccord Genuity published this morning, Apple is predicted to reach the 650M user mark within the next 4 years. While noting that the Cupertino company captured 93% of mobile industry profits in Q4, the investment firm has raised its price target on shares of Apple (AAPL) to $145 from $135, Barron’s reports.
Walkley adds that his assessment of vendor data in smartphones suggests that the strong iPhone 6 replacement sales should continue during 2015, as he estimates that “only 15% of the current estimated 404M iPhone installed base has upgraded to the new devices”. The analyst also anticipates a gradually moderating rate of growth for the installed base from 2016 through 2018 and estimates 650M iPhone users by the end of 2018. “We also anticipate continued strong share gains for the larger screen iPhones from high-tier Android smartphones during 2015 driving strong growth in the iPhone installed base”, said Walkley.
“We note this base would only represent 1/3rd of an estimated 1.82B global premium smartphone subscribers anticipated by C’18. Finally, we anticipate steady long-term iPhone replacement sales within this growing iPhone installed base, and we believe this combined with our modest installed base growth expectations position Apple for steady sales of roughly 210M-215M iPhone units annually between C2015 to C2018”.
An infographic shared by the analyst is also given below, that highlights Apple scooping up the vast majority of profit in Q4, while Samsung has a minority of profit and all others operating at no profit or at a negative margin.
