Wall Street’s anti-Apple bandwagon rolls on.
Shares of the tech titan fell to a new 52-week low yesterday after one Wall Street analyst said sales of the iPhone 5 could slow in the current quarter ahead of a new smartphone release.
The Credit Suisse analyst said Apple would ship a less-than-expected 158 million iPhones in 2013 as consumers held off buying while awaiting the next-generation device.
Also, Samsung’s new Galaxy brand smartphone, which is expected to be unveiled in two weeks, poses a threat to iPhone sales, the analysts said.
That said, the Credit Suisse analysts, in a report, said they “expect Apple to return to its growing ways.”
The company is likely to refresh its iPhone in the second half of the year, and investors have been hoping it will offer a lower-priced version in markets like China, where consumers pay full price for phones. In the US, devices are subsidized by carriers.
Apple shares were down 2.5 percent yesterday to $430.47.
In other Apple news yesterday:
* Hedge fund manager David Einhorn dropped his lawsuit against Apple. The suit sought to keep Apple from bundling shareholder proposals — and to ultimately force the company to return some of its $137 billion in cash to investors through preferred shares.
The lawsuit already thwarted the proposal that Einhorn said would have limited the company’s ability to distribute preferred shares.
* Apple unveiled new corporate governance rules that require CEO Tim Cook to hold shares that are worth 10 times the amount of his salary. The measure is meant to align compensation more closely with stock performance.
* A federal judge ruled that Samsung owes Apple less money in an ongoing patent dispute. The original settlement of $1.05 billion was cut by $450 million, and a new trial was ordered over the patent issues.