Nikkei, WSJ split on their Apple horror narratives

Collected
Two major financial papers that usually blow out false news about Apple's supply chain in lockstep have suddenly diverged within their imagined tales of the way the world's best capitalized & most proficient and competent tech company could be somewhat challenged by the monetary disaster now killing a large number of people.
Never mind the devastation, worry about a trillion-dollar corporation that has confirmed itself to be nearly impervious to disasters of most sorts. That's the message from Japan's Nikkei Asian Review and the Wall Street Journal, although now each is pursuing the narrative in independent directions.

Doom pundits worry about the richest entity in tech

Don't worry about pandemic deaths and the conspicuous insufficient action that is exacerbating what appears to be the world's worst crisis since World War II. No, worry about how exactly Apple will survive 2020 with its hundred billion dollars of capital waiting to snap up deals in the coming fire sales of despair among companies actually at risk.

Both Nikkei and the Wall Street Journal have a bizarre fascination with predicting some potential of doom for Apple that just never seems to materialize.

Partly, that's because Apple has incredible power and money. It's possibly the only global enterprise to simultaneously be the tariff-exempted darling of america and a "too large to fail" essential investment partner of the People's Republic of China. If straddling the world's two superpowers wasn't enough, Apple can be carrying so much cash that its investors have already been concerned that it's simply too rich in order to effectively invest its money rapidly enough.

Of all trillion-dollar corporations-or even Fortune 500 companies-one could worry about, Apple is perhaps the most absurd to be shedding any tears over. Just over the past three months, Apple has danced around World War III and made a laughingstock of analysts like Toni Sacconaghi who have been claiming for a long time that Apple's "best days were behind it."

Then, at the height of panic and isolation beneath the unfolding pandemic of the brand new Coronavirus, Apple floated out new updates that bring LiDAR 3D scanning and advanced AR to its new iPad Pro and rolled out much faster MacBook Airs, along with new Apple Arcade games and new TV+ series, as if its a Merry Christmas instead of a dreary crisis.

Not only tone-deaf to the situation, Apple in addition has used its platforms to provide reassuring, reliable information regarding COVID-19 from its App Stores, Apple News, and even its Apple TV+ collaborations with a motherly Oprah Winfrey to greatly help us all cope with the uncertainty. The company also just made available a COVID-19 symptom screening website and app based on the tips of the CDC.

Yet despite all of the upheaval due to the COVID-19 pandemic, headlines still must be made and stock prices still need to be manipulated by well-timed news drops from sources that are constantly wrong within their predictions about the absolute worst-case scenario that could possibly beset Apple.

Nikkei don't lose that number

The reframing of the coronavirus pandemic as grounds to worry about Apple's financial situation-perhaps the best-positioned entity on the planet in conditions of clout and capital-was kick-started by Japan's Nikkei earlier this week within an absurd piece that speculated that the business's upcoming iPhone 12 may potentially be delayed by "months," predicated on nothing more than the same anonymously-sourced predictions the Nikkei has launched at iPhone nearly every year during the last seven, regularly claiming that Apple's latest iPhone release was running into worrisome troubles that never subsequently materialized.

The story comes just weeks following the Nikkei earlier claimed in February that "public health experts" in China had determined a "high risk of coronavirus infection" at Foxconn facilities where Apple assembles its products. That earlier report was immediately refuted by local authorities in Shenzhen. Officials stated in social media channels that the report was untrue. In addition, it noted that inspections were still ongoing but that factories were expected to resume production "in a timely matter," and that none of the factory operators have requested any "have to resume production earlier (compared to the local governments' recommendations)."

Those factories have since reopened without the reports of "coronavirus infection" being truly a problem. The Nikkei didn't retract its false report, it simply shifted to float out new ones.

The most recent Nikkei bombshell aiming at Apple's iPhone 12 launch date similarly contradicted known facts from reputable sources, including comments from Foxconn. Immediately after it was published, the idea was also refuted by Loup Ventures' analyst Gene Munster, who pointed out that Apple's iPhone launches aren't simply thrown together in the area of year, but involve 3 or 4 years of advanced planning.

"By the finish of March in confirmed year, the vast majority of focus on an iPhone design and planning with the supply chain has already been done," Munster wrote. "Amid 5G iPhone delay rumors, it is important to understand that Apple plans its business regarding decades, not years - an under-appreciated long-term competitive advantage. At the core of the advantage may be the company's balance sheet, that allows it to survive the unexpected; everything from COVID-19, to a financial crisis, or weak initial demand for a new iPhone."

Component producers also pushed back on the Nikkei story, stating that Apple hadn't asked them to postpone production and they had received no request nor any notification about production being delayed. If anything, component producers are bracing for limited demand in the aftermath of COVID-19 interruptions.

Those interruptions have previously hit Apple's Android competitors harder than they have iPhone sales, as we predicted they might. That's in part due to Apple's resilient global operations, that may better adjust to crisis and prioritize development and production by just method of Apple's profitability and capitalization.
Source: https://appleinsider.com

Tags :

Share this news on:

Previous Story

Trending Topics

Archive