Slowing year-over-year growth of sales for Apple’s iPhone appear to be part of the cooling off of sales for the entire smartphone industry.
Taking a closer look at Verizon’s latest earnings report, analyst Maynard Um with Wells Fargo Securities said in a note to investors on Friday that he believes slowing smartphone sales are not Apple-specific. He noted that iPhone activations at Verizon were up 25 percent year over year, while other smartphones grew just 3 percent.
Verizon’s overall smartphone activations were up 14% year-over-year in the March quarter. The carrier saw 27% year-over-year growth in the previous holiday quarter.
“With Nokia and BlackBerry smartphone units also lower than most anticipated, and combined with Verizon’s upgrade data point, we believe the industry may have seen a slowing in (the first quarter of 2013),” Um wrote.
Any slowdown that might be occurring isn’t expected by Um to last. He sees smartphone sales accelerating in the second half of 2013, driven by new product releases, and a large number of iPhone 4S buyers’ contracts will be expiring, making them available for upgrades.
Verizon’s 4 million iPhones activated in the March quarter were about in line with expectations, but the split between the iPhone 5 and legacy units were viewed as somewhat of a disappointment.
