Weak Xiaomi Sales Positive for Apple (AAPL), Stifel Says

Stifel analyst Aaron Rakers said sales numbers today from Xiaomi is a positive for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).

Xiaomi reported that the company sold 34.7 million smartphones in 1HC2015, up 33% yr/yr from 26.1 million in 1HC2014. "We believe this could be considered much less than expected (Apple positive) given the company’s initial guide to ship +100 million smartphones in C2015," Rakers said. "Achieving +100 million smartphone shipments in 2015 would now require Xiaomi to ship at least 65.3 million smartphones in 2HC2015"

He added, "While we believe investors could view this data either of two ways: 1.) Apple (Buy, $126.46)/ others share gains or 2.) slowing growth in overall China smartphone, our opinion is that Xiaomi’s less-than-expected results in 1HC2015 highlights Apple’s continued traction in the China market. We continue to gauge Apple’s China share gains in the June quarter. Our tracking of monthly data points leave us to estimate that the Apple iPhone is currently running at a high-teens relative share in the China smartphone market, a mobile phone market that added 22.8 million 4G subscribers in May; +38.9M 4G subs added for combined April + May. Exiting May there were 200.8 million reported 4G mobile phone subscribers in China, or 15.5% of the total 1.292 billion mobile subscribers (i.e., 635.7M on 3G + 2G phones; 456M 3G subs..."

The firm maintained a Buy rating and price target of $150 on AAPL

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Apple click here. For more ratings news on Apple click here.

Shares of Apple closed at $126.60 yesterday.

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