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Apple (AAPL) Launches Red iPhone 8 and 8 Plus to Boost Sales

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Apple (AAPL - Free Report) lures in users by unveiling red iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, which goes on sale on Apr 10 and will be available in stores from Friday Apr 13 onward.

Reportedly, the company has labeled the devices with same price tags as other regular models, which are $699 for iPhone 8 and $799 for 8 Plus.

The new device is expected to offset weakness arising from the lackluster sales of the premium iPhone X.

iPhone, since its launch in 2007, has been the mainstay of the tech giant’s revenues. However, the spurt in revenues from iPhone in the last quarter was owing to higher iPhone average selling price when total shipments witnessed a decline.

Lower-than-expected sales of iPhone X have been a dampener for the company. Ever since, analysts have been slashing sales estimate for the product.

Goldman Sachs in its Mar 27 note, announced trimming of iPhone sales expectations by a whopping 1.7 million units to 53 million for the March quarter. Also, for the quarter ending June, the firm forecasts sales of 40.3 million units, a decline of 3.2 million from the previous projection.

Given the lower demand for iPhone X, Jun Zhang of Rosenblatt Securities Zhang lowered his estimate for total iPhone shipments for March-quarter by 2 million units to 50 million units.

However, projecting sales of 3 million units for red iPhone 8 to counteract decline in iPhone X, he maintained his June-quarter estimate at 38 million units.

Moreover, the recent launch is part of the company’s partnership with the Red project to raise funds to fight AIDS/HIV. The company has so far donated more than $160 million to the Global Fund.

Apple has released other products in support of Red since 2006 but only in 2017, it paired Red with its flagship product and unveiled the red version of iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

 

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Apple carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks in the broader technology sector include Micron Technology (MU - Free Report) , Twitter and Paycom Software (PAYC - Free Report) , each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Long-term earnings growth for Micron, Twitter and Paycom is projected at 10%, 21.5% and 25.8%, respectively.

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