There are plenty of reasons to be downbeat about
However, there is one big difference between 2012 and 2013. During the June quarter of 2012, Apple was catching the upgrade wave from 24 months earlier - the spring of 2010 when only 8 M iPhones were shipped. But in the June quarter of 2013, Apple is catching the upgrades from the spring of 2011, when 20 M iPhones shipped. The difference between drawing from a pool of 8 M potential upgrades and 20 M potential upgrades is substantial. Of course, some of those consumers bought an iPhone sooner, some may buy later and some may switch to other brands. But Apple has high consumer loyalty and upgrading early is expensive. It is worth noting that Verizon just surprised by delivering a big iPhone activation number - possibly aided by an echo of hot Verizon iPhone sales in the spring of 2011.
Market expectations for the iPhone volume are particularly dim, because news from the smartphone front have been nearly uniformly bleak after commentary from BlackBerry, HTC, Nokia and Samsung. The global iPhone boom of spring 2011 creates a springboard for an echo boomlet 24 months later, even if consumers have started growing bored with the iPhone range. But there is also another factor that could help AAPL share price. Investors know that the company is about to launch two new phones for the first time in the company history, one of them a budget device. That anticipation might give AAPL room to bounce on a moderate iPhone volume surprise even if the gross margins and iPad volume are soft.
