Templeton Cuts Apple Holdings on Emerging-Markets Phone Strategy

Franklin Templeton Investments cut its holdings of Apple Inc. last year on concern the maker of the iPhone lacks a strategy to sell cheaper smartphones in emerging markets such as China and India.

With the U.S. market “saturated,” Apple needs to expand in developing nations, George Russell, a portfolio manager for the Franklin Equity Group, said at a conference in Singapore. The Franklin U.S. Opportunities Fund pared its holdings of Apple to 4.2 percent at the end of last year from about 7 percent in 2011, Russell said. Apple is still the fund’s biggest holding as of the end of last year, he said. The fund bought shares of Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., he said.