The price is about 25,000 Apple's "King Fried" new product officially announced, iPhone sales in China plummeted by 30%

Source: Securities Times

Apple is about to usher in a "new era" with its headset VisonPro - the era of spatial computing.

"Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along. In 2007, at the launch of the original iPhone, Steve Jobs used this sentence as an opening remark. At the 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Jobs' successor, Apple CEO Tim Cook, finally uttered the term "revolutionary product" again.

According to Apple's official website, the Apple Vision Pro will be available in the United States on February 2, with pre-orders starting on January 19. Previously, at WWDC23 held by Apple in the early morning of June 6, 2023, Cook said: "Vision Pro represents the beginning of a new journey. ”

According to Apple's official website, Apple's mixed reality (MR) headset "Apple Vision Pro" is priced at $3,499 (about 25,000 yuan), which covers virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), allowing consumers to immerse themselves in a high-definition virtual world.

Apple leads the "new era" and brings opportunities in the industrial chain

"Just as the Mac brought us into the era of personal computing, the iPhone brought us into the era of mobile computing, and the Apple Vision Pro brought us into the era of spatial computing. Cook said.

For Apple, the Vision Pro took more than seven years to develop. According to Cook, Vision Pro pioneered a new class of computing devices that can integrate digital content into the real world and enable augmented reality, and it is the first Apple product that can be "invisible but visible".

Screenshot of Apple's 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference, source: Apple's official website

With Vision Pro, users can use a wide range of applications in new ways, including video, games, and more. "You can watch, you can listen to digital content, and you can interact with it as if it existed in the real world," Cook said. ”

According to reports, Vision Pro can greatly improve the effect of online meeting communication. In the scenario of holding an online meeting, users can talk face-to-face with multiple people, and at the same time, they can place apps in other locations in the three-dimensional space to achieve parallel operation. Attendees can view the materials presented by the conference and discuss them face-to-face with their colleagues, achieving a similar effect to an in-person meeting. There is an argument that Vision Pro is poised to lead the next generation of productivity tools.

According to sources, Apple's Vision Pro is targeted for about 400,000 units in the first batch of mass production, with a full-year target of 1 million units in 2024, and plans to increase sales to 10 million units in the third year.

At present, the XR headset (including AR, VR, MR) industry is still in a state of "chaos", and Apple's arrival may accelerate the development of the industry.

According to a report released by market research agency IDC, it is estimated that global augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headset shipments will be 8.1 million units in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 8.3%. However, driven by Meta's Quest 3 and Apple's Vision Pro headsets, AR/VR headset shipments will usher in significant growth in 2024, with an estimated year-on-year increase of 46.4%.

Apple's VisionPro is not only expected to drive the development of the XR industry, but also to supply chain enterprises. Guojin Securities Research Report said that it is recommended to actively pay attention to equipment suppliers (Rongqi Technology, Zhi Cube, Huaxing Yuanchuang, Jieput, Kerui Technology, Saiteng Shares), parts suppliers (Zhaowei Electromechanical, Gaowei Electronics, Lixun Precision, Changying Precision and other fruit chain companies).

According to the research report of Guolian Securities, the listing of Vision Pro will not only directly affect its related supply chain companies, but also bring new investment opportunities to the XR industry, especially content ecological manufacturers. In Apple's Vision Pro supply chain, the number of Chinese suppliers accounts for more than half of the total, mainly responsible for structural ontology, sensor modules and foundry, etc., related companies are worth paying attention to. VisionPro is expected to lead the development of the XR content ecosystem and investment opportunities in the industry, especially in related fields such as games, film and television, education, broadcast and media.

苹果开年遇冷，iPhone在华销量下滑30%

Although the VisionPro carries the hope of Apple entering a "new era", Apple's current basic iPhone sales have declined in China.

Recently, analysts at the U.S. investment bank Jefferies released a report saying that Apple's iPhone sales decline in the Chinese market is intensifying, and iPhone sales have fallen off a cliff in the first week of 2024, plummeting 30% from the same period last year.

Jefferies analysts believe that Apple's sales decline is mainly due to fierce competition from local Chinese brands, such as Huawei's launch of the Mate 60 series of mobile phones at the end of August 2023, and sales in the Chinese market continue to be hot. Jefferies expects Huawei to ship 35 million smartphones in 2023 and about 64 million in 2024.

As of the close of trading on January 8, Apple's stock price was $185.56 per share, with a total market capitalization of $2.89 trillion, down 6% from the market value of $3.08 trillion on December 13, 2023. Barclays analysts, led by Tim Long, have also downgraded Apple's stock rating, lowering the price target to $160, implying that Apple's stock price may continue to fall in the coming year.

According to the latest report from Counterpoint Research, sales in the high-end mobile phone market (wholesale price greater than or equal to US$600, about 4,296 yuan) in 2023 increased by 6% year-on-year, setting a new record. Apple is still the absolute leader in the premium segment, but its market share has decreased this year compared to 2022, from 75% in 2022 to 71% in 2023. In contrast, Huawei's market share will increase to 5% in 2023, and Xiaomi's market share will increase to 2%.

Counterpoint believes that the growth rate of the high-end market is likely to continue to outpace the global smartphone market. Handset manufacturers that are able to differentiate and, more importantly, build a strong brand image will benefit from the growth of this segment.