At The Motley Fool, we poke plenty of fun at Wall Street analysts and their endless cycle of upgrades, downgrades, and “initiating coverage at neutral.” Today, we’ll show you whether those bigwigs actually know what they’re talking about. To help, we’ve enlisted Motley Fool CAPS to track the long-term performance of Wall Street’s best and worst.
Is this the end of smartphones?
On CNBC’s Fast Money last night, analysts were all in a lather over a report just out of J.P. Morgan titled “Smartphone adoption peaking in 2013.” A report that, among other things, convinced J.P. to downgrade QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) to “hold.”
Niles noted, too, that smartphone market “penetration” in developing nations is only 15% (suggesting there will be plenty of new sales). And his colleague Stephen Weiss, of Short Hills Capital, quickly chimed in: “Don’t forget the tablet market,” pointing out that Qualcomm has a chance to put chips in some 650 million tablet computers annually by 2016. All of which, Weiss, said, makes J.P. Morgan’s assertion, that smartphone adoption has peaked, sound pretty “ludicrous,” and all of which suggests there’s still every reason in the world to own Qualcomm.
That being said, there’s just one thing wrong with the analysts’ attack on J.P.’s report:
That’s not what J.P. said
J.P. Morgan never actually said what they say it said, you see. What J.P. did say was: “We see 2013 as another strong year for smartphones with 37% growth predicted … However, our proprietary smartphone model continues to predict that 2014 will be the first year that new adoptions decline with unit growth slowing to 17%.”
See the difference? According to CNBC, J.P. just baldly predicted the demise of smartphones within 12 months. But in fact, J.P. only predicted a slowing in the rate of smartphone sales increases. Sales will continue to happen. Indeed, smartphones sales will continue to grow and grow in 2014 and beyond. They just won’t grow at faster and faster rates.
A distinction with a difference
That’s important. It’s important in particular because it means investors can’t simply dismiss J.P.’s prediction as the ravings of a barking mad banker. Instead, they need to give J.P.’s warning serious consideration — not just as it relates to Qualcomm, but as it relates to pretty much everyone involved in the making of smartphone components, and smartphones, period.
So what exactly did J.P. say, other than making the obvious point that sales can’t accelerate to infinity and beyond? Three points stand out:
- First, J.P. noted that “average selling prices must still come down.”
- Second, “lower cost smartphones and tablets” are key to maintaining sales growth rates.
- Third, since falling average selling prices will crimp profit margins, and tend to cancel out earnings gains from growing sales, there is “limited upside to current earnings estimates.”
What it means to you
Now what does this mean to Qualcomm shareholders? Let’s start with where the stock stands today. At a P/E ratio of more than 17, but a projected growth rate of less than 15% (and a 1.5% dividend yield to make up the difference), Qualcomm shares today look appropriately priced. To justify a buy rating, we’d have to see Qualcomm’s growth rate rise substantially from already strong levels — something J.P. argues is not likely to happen.
