Apple iPhone Maintaining 'Strong' High-End Smartphone Market Share, New Survey Data Shows

• Apple Inc. AAPL shares are down 11 percent in the last six months, even after hitting a high of $132.07 on July 20.
• Canaccord Genuity’s Michael Walkley maintained a Buy rating on the company, with a price target of $160.
• Surveys indicate that the iPhone has maintained a strong share in the premium tier smartphone market, Walkley stated.

Surveys indicate that Apple is maintaining a strong share in the high-end smartphone market, analyst Michael Walkley said. He believes that the iPhone 6S would enable the company to record robust sales as well as share gains in the premium tier smartphone market.

With the surveys highlighting a deceleration in growth trends for the global smartphone market, Walkley commented that the rate of Apple’s market share gains could decline.

“We believe the new Apple installment plan programs combined with similar to more aggressively priced installment programs from leading carriers will improve the rate of iPhone upgrade sales to the growing installed base of iPhone users,” the Canaccord Genuity report stated.

With merely 27 percent of the iPhone installed base upgrading to the iPhone 6/6 Plus devices by the end of F3Q15, strong replacement sales are likely to continue through C2016 and beyond.

Moreover, the larger screen iPhone 6 devices are likely to continue to capture share in the high-end smartphone market, since the surveys indicate “a greater mix of Android smartphone consumers are switching to the iPhone 6 smartphones than during iPhone 5 series launches.”

Walkley believes that these trends could boost the iPhone installed base to more than 500 million by the end of 2015. He added that this base “should drive strong future iPhone replacement sales, earnings, as well as cash flow generation to fund strong long-term capital returns programs.”