Why did apple shares fall?  Red Sea: why Apple and other tech stocks are falling.  What are the prospects for investing in Apple

Why did apple shares fall? Red Sea: why Apple and other tech stocks are falling. What are the prospects for investing in Apple

Hello dear readers! Investing in the largest companies is often called the best investment, but how does this compare to the fact that Apple shares have fallen?

I propose to find out the factors influencing the price of the IT giant's securities, find out the prospects for the corporation and get acquainted with the forecasts of experts - in which direction the value of Yabloko's shares will change in the near future. We will also find out whose securities are worth buying as an alternative to investing in Apple.

  • iPhone XS starting at $999;
  • XS Max with 6.5-inch screen starting at $1099;
  • XSMax with increased to 512 gigabytes of memory - from $1449.

Smartphone buyers greeted the new gadgets with relative indifference, experts ruled out the rush demand in advance, which was the reason for the falling share price.

The second reason is the fact that a week earlier, Apple shares already set a record of $ 229.67, bringing the corporation to first place in the ranking of the most expensive on the planet with a capitalization of $ 1 trillion. If the trend reaches its peak, then there is a downward movement in the future. .

On Friday, November 2, shares fell before the start of trading immediately by 5% by the end of the previous day, to $ 211.2: this is how the market perceived the sincere recognition of the corporation's representatives that it stops publishing data on the number of iPhones, iPads and Mac computers sold.

Although the company proceeded from the interests of investors, for whom it is more important to know how much money the issuer earned, and not how many units of goods they sold.

But the stocks fell the most after the New Year - on January 3, 2019, the papers collapsed during trading by 9.43%, or to $143.03 by the close of the day. Again, honesty “let down” the corporation - its head Tim Cook warned investors that Apple expects a decrease in revenue in the first quarter due to unpredictable problems with sales in China and other countries with growing markets.

Mr. Cook explained the falling sales in the Celestial Empire by trade wars between Washington and Beijing. As a result, the shares of the American giant's Asian suppliers fell after Apple's, and Apple itself slipped from the first place in the world in terms of capitalization to the 4th, losing the pedestal to Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

What's going on with Apple stock now

Share price on the stock exchange: online chart

In early June, Apple fell again due to media reports about the company's upcoming compliance review. antitrust law USA.

Even the presentation of iOS 13, which took place on June 3, was overshadowed by the news of a possible visit to Apple by inspectors from the US Department of Justice. According to Reuters, such plans of the department are connected with repeated accusations of the giants of Silicon Valley of discriminatory actions against Republicans in favor of Democrats, which sounded from the lips of Donald Trump himself.

It is expected that for the same reason, the Ministry of Justice will also begin to "shake" Facebook and Google, whose papers fell at the same time as Apple's.

However, after the aforementioned drop in early January, Apple shares went up again and steadily increased in price until June, and on June 5 they returned to the “green zone”.

Rate dynamics over time

Listed on the NASDAQ as AAPL, Apple shares are characterized by stable growth and significant declines, alternating with long-term trends. At the same time, the volatility of the shares of the giant, which changed the world with iPhones and iPads, does not exceed the performance of other issuers on the US stock market.

AAPL reductions are generally short-term. Quotes fell seriously only in 2008, but this is due to the global financial crisis. The dynamics of Apple itself has consistently remained positive.

From 2006 to 2017, the shares increased in value by 15 times. A 15-fold increase in the price of this asset plus dividends - this is how much private investors earned during this period, who bought the company's papers and did not dump them afterwards.

What affects the share price

The cost of securities of the giant of the IT market is determined by:

  1. Demand for gadgets, computers and other Apple products.
  2. Behavioral factor - above I talked about how painfully Apple investors react to negative news about the corporation.
  3. indicators financial reporting: revenue, gross profit, ratio p/e, p/b.

It is noteworthy that on November 2, 2018, dissatisfaction with the concealment of the number of gadgets sold for some reason prevailed over the report published the day before, according to which the corporation increased both income and net profit.

Company outlook

Analysts tend to believe that the development of the new iPadOS operating system, presented simultaneously with iOS 13, will be a serious growth driver for Apple, allowing it to significantly increase the power of new iPads, and with it tablet sales.

But even with the most disappointing state of affairs with the sale of Apple gadgets, bankruptcy is not threatened, since the company's activities are not limited to them. She is actively developing:

  1. Own online TV service, providing access to the content that is in the greatest demand, exclusively through a paid subscription.
  2. Mobile banking service Apple Card with the issuance of payment and credit cards.
  3. Apple Arcade - a new catalog of games, including exclusive ones.
  4. Apple News+ is a subscription service for the world's most popular magazines for online reading.
  5. A number of innovative areas (artificial intelligence, ANN, augmented reality technologies and autopilot).

In addition, the company has an enormous margin of safety, allowing it to overcome any difficulties and continue to grow in the future.

Analytics and forecast for the paper

Experts predict that Apple will retain its leading position in the IT devices market, which guarantees its shares unflagging popularity among investors. Positive dynamics in the next few years will remain the same. Investors are offered to put aside worries about whether Apple stocks will fall again.

In favor of AAPL, the corporation's earnings report for the past 12 months (percentage growth) speaks:

  • gross profit - 38.5;
  • operating margin - 25.34;
  • profit ratio - 21.69;
  • return on investment - 21.3.

The volume of finance received from operating activities for the half year from October 1, 2018 to March 30, 2019 amounted to USD 37 billion 845 million, net change Money- plus 13 billion 904 million dollars.

Apple's main competitors in the physical IT product market are Samsung, Sony Mobile, Fitbit wrist gadgets, Dell laptops, Bose headphones, software developers Microsoft, Facebook and Google.

Their shares should be bought either instead of AAPL, or at the same time, diversifying the portfolio and protecting yourself from losses due to falling quotes.

Conclusion

The company's reporting is incontrovertible evidence that Apple is doing well. Misunderstandings with Trump and politicians of a lower rank are resolvable, falling stock prices due to behavioral factors are a short-term phenomenon.

It follows that the purchase of AAPL - good investment money, even if the stock fell repeatedly during the year. Cunning investors must have managed to earn decent money on this rally.

Hello dear reader!

My review today will reveal the reasons why Apple shares fell by stock exchange. I will talk in detail about the factors responsible for the falling quotes, review retrospective data and outline the future prospects of the IT industry giant.

What is attributed to the rapid fall in Apple shares at the end of last year? Why did it happen? First of all, this is explained by the falling sales volume. In September 2018, the company introduced a new line of smartphones: iPhone XR, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.

The developers expected an influx of buyers, but in reality it turned out differently. In the US and China, the demand for new models has reached a minimum in recent years.

The sales report contains disappointing forecasts for the fourth quarter. This is logical, given that the share of the iPhone in Apple's total revenue is about 60%. In addition, suppliers of components for smartphones announced the falling forecast indicators.

Last year, the fall in their shares also experienced largest enterprises IT industries: Google, Amazon and Facebook. However, Apple shares fell more than others. This immediately affected the rating: leadership in the list of the most expensive corporations in the world was lost.

The losses of the giants are associated with the shift of investors' attention to enterprises from traditional sectors of the economy. Falling sales volumes of technology companies pushed them to look for alternative sources of profit.

The second and no less compelling reason for the falling price of Apple shares in 2018 lies in the ongoing trade war between the US and China. A further deepening of the crisis in relations between the two countries will hurt Apple's positions, since 1/5 of its customers live in China. Moreover, iPhones and most other devices are assembled in this country.

What's going on with Apple stock now

Apple securities also fell in value due to rumors: experts predict an increase in the price of smartphones after the increase in duties amid the ongoing trade war with China. This will negatively affect the level of demand.

In early June, after news of a possible reduction in the key rate of the Federal Reserve System, US stock indices rose. After this news, traders began to buy risky assets. Analysts believe that this to some extent compensates for possible losses from the escalation of tensions between the US and China.

Despite rising 27% since January, most analysts recommend buying Apple shares. The current situation makes it possible to buy the company's securities at an affordable price.

Share price on the stock exchange: online chart

Rate dynamics over time

Until relatively recently, Apple's stock quotes drew bright prospects. As a result of trading on August 2, 2018 on the US stock exchange NASDAQ, the price of one security reached $207.39. As a result, Apple became the first company in the world with a market capitalization of $1 trillion: this is the amount obtained by multiplying the total number of shares (4829 million shares) by the unit value at the end of the trading day.

The 3rd quarter closed with positive results: compared to 2017, revenue increased by 17%, while net income per share grew by 40%.

On October 3, the price of one share was fixed at a record $233.47. However, in the future, the rate fell sharply: securities fell by 29%. Most shareholders suffered significant losses. The results of the year were disappointing.

What affects the share price

The main factors affecting the value of shares:

  • profitability;
  • industry situation;
  • the future of the company;
  • the level of competition;
  • world politics news;
  • internal politics of the country.

By carefully analyzing these factors, you can find a reliable answer to the question: “Will stock prices fall again or will the situation stabilize?”.

Company outlook

In the first quarter of this year, Apple achieved the following financial indicators(compared to the same period last year):

  • gross revenue of $58 billion or 5% lower;
  • net profit– $11.6 billion, down 16%;
  • EPS of $2.46 or 10% less.

It is worth noting that Apple reached the planned revenue target, set in the range of 55-59 billion US dollars.

In three months of 2019, the company sold $31 billion worth of iPhones. Compared to the first quarter previous year sales fell by 17%. The main reasons for the drop in demand are:

  1. People are much less likely to upgrade their mobile phones.
  2. Competition from manufacturers from China who produce cheap models.

As a result, the share of the iPhone in the overall revenue structure fell from 60% to 54%. Apple compensated for the lost profit from the sale of smartphones by selling services.

The company plans to stabilize the situation through the following actions:

  1. Provide discounts for iPhone owners when purchasing new models.
  2. release credit card for users of their products with 2% cashback.
  3. Expand the list of paid services.

This year, the IT giant introduced its new applications: the Apple Arcade gaming platform, the Apple TV+ video service, and the Apple News+ news service.

According to the results of the second quarter, gross revenue is forecasted to be in the range of $52.5 to $54.5 billion, which is slightly more than last year. Another positive piece of news is that Apple intends to raise its dividend payout by 5%.

Despite the crisis, the development of innovative products continues. So, in 2020, the release of iPhone smartphones equipped with 5G modem chips will be launched.

Of course, it's too early to say that the worst for the company is over. However, there are also positive developments. The management is actively developing the service sector: mobile payments, app store, online music and cloud storage. Due to this, the company is going to gain about 50 billion US dollars.

Also, Apple is going to continue diversifying revenues and plans to become a major provider of digital services.

Analytics and forecast for the paper

Analysts predict that the rate will go up again: an increase of 20% is expected for the year.

Growth will be supported by the release of a report on earnings for the first quarter, which exceeded expectations, as well as a profit forecast for the second quarter. The target price per share by the end of the year is $216.

Alternative in this industry

Apple's main competitors in the smartphone segment are South Korean Samsung and Chinese Huawei. In terms of sales, Samsung ranks first in the world. Apple is next, Huawei closes the top three. However, by the end of this year, the Chinese manufacturer may oust the American holding.

In Russia, according to the results of 2018, Huawei overtook the two recognized giants and became the leader in terms of sales. In total, 8 million smartphones were sold compared to 3 million a year earlier. The further growth of the Chinese company may be hindered by a trade war: the US has blacklisted Huawei and its many partners.

In addition, Google, the developer of the Android operating system installed on the phones of the Chinese manufacturer, refused to cooperate with them. Refusal to supply updates for existing smartphones and equip future models with the operating system can cause Huawei to fall in position.

Google is Apple's main competitor in the operating system market for mobile devices. Android and iOS for two occupy 99% of the mobile market. At the same time, Android, due to its compatibility with different manufacturers, is many times ahead of iOS in terms of the number of users. Analysts expect the system to maintain its leading position, with a whopping 79% market share.

The interests of Apple and Google also overlap in the online payment market. Another competitor of the company in this industry is PayPal.

Conclusion

In my opinion, multi-vector as a new development strategy will help Apple regain lost ground. Now the main factor for the company is the "Chinese" factor: the future profits of one of the flagships of the IT industry depend on the course of further negotiations between the two world powers.

Now is the right moment for those who want to profitably buy shares of Apple. However, the positive results of the first half of the year may immediately affect the growth of quotations. For those investors who work for the long term, it remains to wait for the situation to improve.

If you liked my review, subscribe to the site and stay up to date with all the news. Until we meet again!

The November sales report was the first wake-up call. The company published a disappointing forecast for the next quarter (and this is taking into account the period new year holidays).

In addition, market participants did not like the company's decision to stop publishing data on sales of individual types of devices (unit-sales figures) and "focus on the big picture" in future reporting. Observers and analysts considered that this move testifies to the failed sales of new gadgets.

This was indirectly confirmed by the situation with Apple's counterparties. So Lumentum Holdings (LITE), which develops 3D laser sensors (used in FaceID for iPhone), lowered its sales forecast for the quarter by 17%, citing a decrease in orders from a "major client"

On a conference call with investors from Lumentum CEO Alan Lowe, the unnamed major customer first asked for a delay in deliveries and then lowered order volumes. Later, the company's financial director called this customer the largest for the company, and from the previously published annual report of Lumentum it follows that Apple was such for it - it accounted for 30% of all sales.

In addition, Qorvo lowered its financial quarterly forecast. The company owns factories for the production of components for smartphones. Apple is a major customer of the company, according to annual report it accounts for up to 36% of revenue.

Why stocks of other technology companies are falling

Other major tech companies, like Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter, have also seen stocks drop since then. FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) stocks have lost 14.3% on average over the past three months. At the same time, the Nasdaq Composite index, which unites technology companies, rose by 20% in August, and has since fallen by 9%.

The authors of an analytical note on Yahoo Finance explain this by the changed interests of investors. They made money in tech stocks during the late summer rally, and now they have switched to stocks of organizations from more traditional spheres. For example, stocks rise in price

IT business began 2019 with embarrassment: on January 2, Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed investors with an open letter, in which he said that "incomes in the last quarter will be lower than originally expected."

The phrase turned out to be enough for the company's shares to fall by $66 billion at the next session (for reference: the value of Gazprom shares is $57 billion).

Two days later, Apple's main competitor, Korean Samsung, issued a similar warning, but instead of vague phrases, it preferred to publish figures: a decrease in quarterly sales by 11% and a decrease in profit by 29%. The market accepted the negative favorably and reacted even with moderate growth.

American IT technology experts agreed, but not with the arguments of Samsung, but with Apple, and began to frighten the townsfolk with direct quotes from open letter Tim Cook: in the second half of 2018, a recession began in the Chinese economy, the decline in GDP is almost the worst in 25 years, financial markets Uncertainty reigns in China, and smartphone sales are rapidly declining. Do you know why? Because the US has launched a trade war with China.

To the listed reasons for the catastrophic drop in iPhone sales in China, the head of Apple also added the perfidious behavior of buyers from the countries of the “developed market”: instead of purchasing the latest iPhone models, ungrateful fans of apple technology preferred to replace batteries in their old smartphones, taking advantage of the noble gesture of Apple, which reduced the cost of this procedure from 79 to 29 dollars.

Since the public does not understand the intricacies of the IT business and relies on the conclusions of professional industry analysts, rumors spread around the tabloids of the planet: “Smartphones are kirdyk.” And it is not clear which one: either only iPhones, or all at once.

Description for the image

Tim Cook offered investors his version of Apple's profit cut and received a disproportionate "response" from the market - $ 66 billion washed out of the company's capitalization per day exchange trading. Where did this overreaction come from? After all, the head of Apple was clearly counting on something exactly the opposite, since he decided to break the tradition and comment on the results of the quarterly report a month before their official announcement.

A public company's quarterly report is one of the key drivers stock market. For the stock exchange, however, it is not the report figures themselves that are important, but their correlation with market expectations and analysts' opinions. After all, stock quotes of a public company are always like life on loan: securities that are in favor on the market cost an order of magnitude more than the company is able to earn in a year. Let's say this indicator (ratio market value to annual profit) Apple is 10, Amazon is 17, and Netflix is ​​114 in total.

In a situation where stock quotes are several times higher than income, company leaders have to choose their expressions very carefully so as not to scare investors needlessly. For the same reason, public comments that precede official statistics are rarely made and with the sole purpose of sweetening the pill in a situation where too negative results are expected.

Tim Cook, of course, knows all this alphabet, therefore he writes an “open letter”, in which, preparing investors for trouble, he tries to speak with them in a language that he thinks they understand.

The exchange, being a product of the collective unconscious, is completely unable to analyze the subtleties of economic or social processes. For this reason, Cook talks about what the crowd is hearing: Donald Trump's trade war, which allegedly caused a recession in China, so iPhone sales inevitably declined. The Apple CEO apparently reasoned that the faceless stock market crowd is not able to immediately understand that the recession, which, according to Cook, began in China only six months ago, cannot affect the purchasing power, much less the habits of the population, simply because that it takes much more time.

The only reactions available to the collective unconscious in the stock market are two primitive impulses: fear and greed. Tim Cook is trying to dispel fear, so never in an “open letter” does he name the true size of the financial losses expected in the last quarter: “Revenues are lower than expected” - that's the whole comment.

What miscalculated the director of Apple? That he underestimated the patient's suspiciousness. You can’t say to a suspicious patient: “You, my friend, have wonderful tests, you just need to double-check a little, so please do a biopsy.” A suspicious patient will instantly google, find out about situations when a biopsy is in demand, and then take out the brain to the doctor. And so it happened: stock people pulled up the latest Apple report dated November 1, 2018, found in it the phrase “projected profit for the next quarter is in the range between $ 89 and 93 billion,” compared it with the phrase from the “open letter” - “profit was approximately $84 billion" and performed an elementary arithmetic operation: 93 - 84 = 9. iPhone sales fell by $9 billion.

Please note: stock exchange people took from the previous report not the lower bar of profit (89), but the upper one (93), and it was this figure - $ 9 billion in losses - that appeared in all publications of the American press after the bloodbath arranged for Apple shares on the stock exchange on January 3 . That is, they assessed the situation according to the worst-case scenario. Indeed, fear has big eyes.

What really happened to Apple sales in China? What kirdyk of iPhones in particular and smartphones in general did the public get excited about?

Firstly, the reasons for the decline in sales indicated in Cook's letter are from the evil one. Apple tried to keep a good face on a very bad game. You only need to look at a small tablet to understand the inconsistency of talk about a recession and American customs wars:


This is the Chinese smartphone market dynamics from 2017 to 2018. The share of Apple is 9%. Twice as many for HUAWEI, vivo and OPPO. Xiaomi has one and a half times more. Samsung in the Chinese market is quite a dwarf (1%).

Per Last year iPhone sales in China fell by 17%, Samsung sales by a catastrophic 67%. But sales of HUAWEI have grown, as well as sales of vivo.

Maybe somewhere in these figures the Chinese recession is hiding, but it is clearly acting selectively: it helps Chinese smartphone manufacturers and harms foreign ones.

By the way, Samsung, in its press release published on January 4, behaved much more honestly than Apple and pointed to the only correct reason for the decline in smartphone sales in China: “intensified competition in the core market.” For this honesty, the market thanked Samsung with moderate growth.

The real reason for the decline in iPhone sales is that local Chinese manufacturers are already more than a year sell equipment with an incomparably better price / quality ratio.

Against the background of complete technological parity, all that Apple has left is the prestige of the brand, for which, year after year, people from Cupertino demand more and more money.

At some point, Chinese consumers decided that the iPhone cannot and should not cost $1269 (the local price for the iPhone XS 64GB), and switched to the top flagships of national manufacturers. That's the whole magic of falling iPhone sales. No recession, no Trump.

To be sure, behind the inability of Apple and Samsung to continue to sell their top phones at exorbitant prices in China, far more monumental trends are visible.

Here is the absolute saturation of the smartphone market. This is where technologies reach the level of ultimate satisfaction of user desires - it is for this reason that buyers stopped updating their gadgets two, three, or four years ago.

And yes! - users really prefer to change batteries, rather than pay $ 1,000 every year for new model, which does not differ qualitatively from last year.

There is no doubt that the companies that control the market will not give up without a fight and lay down their bones, if only to return the wrong flock to the only paradigm possible for modern consumerism - an ongoing series of more and more new purchases.


Photo: Reuters

There are two ways to achieve your goal. We'll be very lucky if Apple (as well as other manufacturers) adopts a trading scheme similar to Samsung Forward, which allows the user to upgrade their flagship smartphones annually in exchange for regular payments.

The amount of monthly payments from Samsung still looks wild (from 3790 rubles), but if other manufacturers support this scheme, we can hope that the average price of offers on the market will quickly drop to an attractive level.

The alternative scenario for the possible development of events in the smartphone market is less radiant. If consumer refusal to voluntarily upgrade becomes the dominant trend, smartphone manufacturers may try to "push" us to this upgrade technically. For example, by radically lowering the service life limit of any key components. And then, you see, in a year the Bluetooth module “suddenly” will be covered in the smartphone, broken pixels will crawl across the screen, the battery will fail, etc.

Apple, by the way, already has experience with such frauds: in 2017, users began to notice that as the batteries in the iPhone 6, 6S, SE and 7 models aged, not only did the duration battery life, but somehow the processor performance began to drop suspiciously. From which it was concluded that

At the software level, Apple deliberately makes working on old smartphones unbearable, thereby pushing consumers to upgrade.

Just after this scandal, Apple, in an effort to improve its image, reduced the cost of a battery replacement service at authorized centers by $ 50.

I believe, however, that the scenario with forced upgrades is more of a conspiracy theory. If only because smartphone manufacturers will be dragged through the courts, and in the conditions of American case law, they will be ruined in no time.

So the “perpetual leasing” scheme remains – promising for consumers, as well as capable of keeping the smartphone market afloat for more than a decade.

At the close of trading, Apple shares were worth $ 216.7 - this is the maximum since the beginning of November last year, Bloomberg.

The main news of the presentation for many was the cost of a subscription to the Apple TV + streaming service, which the company promised to launch on November 1. The subscription will cost $4.99 per month. By comparison, the most popular Netflix subscription plan costs $12.99, and the upcoming Disney+ service costs $6.99. In addition, Apple promised to give a year of free subscription to those who buy a new device from the company.

After this announcement, the shares of other companies operating in the streaming industry fell in price. Price valuable papers Netflix fell more than 3% after Apple's announcement, but then papers won back part of the losses and fell by 2.16% at the close. Disney shares by the end of the day fell in price by 3.04%. Shares in TV set-top box maker Roku, which competes in this space with Apple TV set-top boxes, fell to 12%, and by the close of the exchange showed a drop of 10.49%.

“We didn't expect [gaming service] Arcade and especially Apple TV to be so aggressively priced. The company understands that once consumers join the ecosystem, they don't leave,” Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Solutions, told Reuters. Managing Director at financial company Wedbush Securities Michael James Names Price for Apple TV+ pleasant surprise” and stressed that it was because of this announcement that the shares of other streaming companies were falling in price. "It's definitely good news that people were happy to hear," he told the agency.

Investment bank Piper Jaffray notes that the services will not bring revenue to Apple for "a few more years," writes The Wall Street Journal. But their launch itself shows that Apple is aiming to become less dependent on iPhone sales, the bank points out.

At the same time, consumer interest in Apple TV + can be hit by a limited amount of content, emphasizes Piper Jaffray. CNET journalist Joan Solsman also writes about this. She points out that Apple TV+ will feature just nine original shows or series at launch, with five more coming out in the coming months. Disney+ will launch with a library of 300 movies and 7,500 episodes of various series and shows. Netflix will run 32 original shows by the time Apple TV+ launches, notes Solsman.

In addition to services, at the September 10 presentation, Apple, following a tradition that has continued since 2017, introduced three new smartphones - iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Smartphones with the Pro prefix were the first in the Apple line with a triple camera: smartphones have three lenses of 12 megapixels at once, which improves the quality of pictures taken in low light. On top of that, the iPhone 11 Pro lasts four hours longer than last year's XS, while the Max lasts five hours longer. Also included for the first time will be fast charging.

Prices for iPhone 11 will start at $699, for iPhone 11 Pro - from $999, iPhone 11 Pro Max - $1099.

“Apple this year has been much more clear about who a particular smartphone is designed for. Apple 11 will suit the average user who needs a battery that lasts longer. The iPhone Pro is designed for those who are willing to pay for more power, a camera and video tools,” writes The Wall Street Journal journalist Joanna Stern.

The bet on the massive iPhone 11 is very strong in communication with Forbes and the head of Hi-Tech Mail.ru Dmitry Ryabinin. He noted that the model runs the risk of becoming the best-selling smartphone of the pre-holiday quarter, despite the fact that the technical characteristics are rather banal for the market as a whole.