Needham analyst supports Apple’s decision to stop providing unit sales data for iPhone, iPad and Mac

“Maybe it’s not so bad that Apple stops regularly reporting iPhone, iPad and Mac unit sales data—if the company replaces it with something better,” David Marino-Nachison reports for Barron’s. “Needham analyst Laura Martin suggested that Thursday as she cut her price target on the tech giant’s shares to $200, below FactSet’s roughly $219 average, from $260. (She still has a Buy rating on the stock, however.)”
“Her suggestion: If Apple must taketh away… it should giveth back, too,” Marino-Nachison reports. “‘We support Apple’s decision to stop ‘providing unit sales data for iPhone, iPad and Mac’ because we believe that it tethers Apple’s valuation to its hardware roots of the past, not the future,’ Martin wrote. ‘We believe Apple is an ‘ecosystem company’ and that valuation should be based on (and we would like to see more metrics about: unique user growth; trends in churn rates (i.e., average life-span) and trends in average lifetime revenue per user.'”
Marino-Nachison reports, “And Barron’s Jack Hough, wrote: “If Apple can get investors to focus less on how its quarterly iPhone volumes compare with guesses, and more on bottom-line results, it could be viewed less as a hit-or-miss gadget maker and more as a digital staple seller.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s competitors do not regularly report quarterly smartphone, tablet, or personal computer unit sales, either.
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