Largan Precision, the company the supplies iPhone camera modules, is expected to see limited earnings growth this year amid reports that the iPhone 6s will retain an 8MP camera.
Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting analyst Jeff Pu says that Largan's sales last month were below expectations due to a lower demand for iPhones, a smaller portion of iPhone 6 Plus models, and weak demand from Chinese handset brands.
“February will be affected by fewer working days, and we don’t expect much of a recovery in March owing to the fast-falling number of iPhone [shipments],” said Pu, who maintains a downgrade rating on Largan and a price target of NT$2,650.
Pu says that camera specifications of the next iPhone, presumably called the iPhone 6s, will stay the same at 8 megapixels which limits potential catalysts to push Largan’s stock price higher in the second half of the year.
While migration to 8MP and 13MP lenses will likely remain strong among Chinese vendors of mid-tier and low-end phones, upgrades to 16MP and 20MP for flagship smartphones is said to be slow given a limited supply of CMOS sensors.
“On the other hand, we expect the specification migration in high-end models to be from new features, such as optical image stabilization and fast autofocus, which benefit module makers more than lens makers, in our view,” Pu said.
Notably, Apple has been rumored to be working on a major update to the iPhone's camera that features a dual-lens system. It's possible that the company would still utilize 8MP camera modules for this new feature.
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Comments (9)
Comments are closed for this article.
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Jacob - February 10, 2015 at 3:07am
Ummm....doesn't Sony provide the camera sensor for Apple?
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gamerscul9870 - February 10, 2015 at 3:08am
Yes but it's the way Apple puts the camera together.
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igorsky - February 9, 2015 at 5:42pm
Yep, and still out-sells everyone.
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igorsky - February 9, 2015 at 6:50pm
Why are you worried about it though?
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gamerscul9870 - February 9, 2015 at 9:00pm
Same megapixels but still uses and upgraded sensor like it runs as good as any other camera but still goes above and beyond others. Why else was Apple the 2nd worlds best camera behind canon? You're best at attempting to blame Apple with useless gimmicks that provide very little info of where you barely even looked.
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Jacob - February 10, 2015 at 3:06am
They didn't' out sell Samsung, they made more profit than Samsung. Read the last quarter results for both companies.
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Jacob - February 10, 2015 at 3:13am
Read the article you link to, it says in the U.S., the world is bigger than the U.S., what is wrong with reading the last quarter results?
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gamerscul9870 - February 10, 2015 at 3:27am
Doesn't matter. Japan has their world of China manufactors and we have ours.