By Sam Boughedda
TF International analysts said Friday that Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) is the biggest winner of Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) cancelation of the 2024 iPhone SE 4.
They revealed in a blog post today that Apple has told suppliers that the "production and shipment plans for the 2024 iPhone SE 4 have been canceled rather than delayed."
"Due to concerns that the performance of the in-house baseband chip may not be up to par with Qualcomm's, Apple initially planned to launch its baseband chip in 2024 and let the low-end iPhone SE 4 adopt it first, and decide whether to let the iPhone 16 use its baseband chip depending on the development status of iPhone SE 4," explained the analysts.
However, they added that the cancelation of the iPhone SE 4 has "significantly increased" the chances of Qualcomm remaining the exclusive supplier of baseband chips for the 2H24 new iPhone 16 series. This is said to be better than the market consensus that Qualcomm will start losing iPhone orders in 2024.
Qualcomm shares jumped more than 4% Friday. Apple is also up, having gained just under 3% at the time of writing.
The analysts went on to state that Qualcomm is expected to continue to dominate the global high-end mobile phone RF market in 2023 and 2024, which they believe will, at least, lead to markedly higher profits than its competitors.
"The company's strong product mix, which confers competitive advantages, is expected to mitigate the negative impacts of the economic recession and allow Qualcomm to return to solid growth ahead of its competitors once the economy recovers," they concluded.