Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock rallied on Friday after Warren Buffett said he’s not worried about slow iPhone sales. He accepts CEO Tim Cook’s explanation that iPhone 8 rumors caused consumers to hold off on buying a new iPhone during the March quarter. He also emphasized that he’s in Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock for the long term.
Warren Buffett is committed to Apple stock
In an interview that aired Friday on CNBC‘s Squawk Box, Warren Buffett said he is still confident in Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock and he doesn’t own it just because of what he thinks the company’s earnings will be in the next couple of quarters. The shares pulled back this week after investors were disappointed with the number of iPhones the company had sold during the March quarter.
Cook blamed iPhone 8 rumors for the miss, and Buffett was happy with the explanation. In the interview with CNBC, he compared buying a new iPhone to buying a new car, saying that people would probably wait to buy a new car if they knew a new one was being released tomorrow with better features and roughly the same price as the current one. Warren Buffett still sees the iPhone as an “incredible consumer product.”
iPhone 8 should draw back delayed iPhone purchases
Most analysts don’t expect the iPhone unit miss to have any real impact on Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s results this year. Nomura analyst Jeffrey Kvaal said in his May 3 research note that he expects iPhone sales lost the first part of this year to reappear later after the iPhone 8 launches, either in the September or December quarters. He suggested that the company may even benefit from the delayed purchases because those buyers may end up buying a model with a higher average selling price than they would have if they had purchased an upgrade “on time.”
With all the rumors about the iPhone 8 possibly being sold at a higher price point than current models, it’s no stretch to imagine a revenue benefit for Apple Inc. (AAPL) here.
Apple stock benefits from the Warren Buffett effect
Warren Buffett also said on CNBC that he like that the company buys back shares and said whenever he likes when companies buy their shares back. He thinks that every CEO should understand his own company more than he understands other companies, and he told CNBC that “it’s a good buy if you can buy your own stock.”
Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock rose by more than 1.5% to touch a new record high of $148.91 on Friday in what can only be described as “the Warren Buffett effect.” Cook thanked the billionaire investor earlier this year when the iPhone maker’s shares also enjoyed a Buffett bump after the Berkshire Hathaway chief revealed that he had more than doubled his stake. Buffett’s firm held a 2.5% position in Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock as of February.
