Why Apple's iPhone 16 might not be enough to drive sales

it seems Wall Street is quite upbeat on Apple's latest succession plan joining us now with his take we've got Tom Forte who is the maximum group a managing director and Senior consumer internet analyst here great to have you here with us Tom all right so you heard the discussion and you've seen the news so now what for apple and what does this transition signal to investors out there yeah so I think the the signaling to investors is that to me Luca's biggest accomplishment was Advan ing toward net cash neutrality so what does that mean returning more money to shareholders via dividends and BuyBacks uh this is something that the incoming CFO Mr perek is going to work towards as well the other thing that I think is interesting is if you were to compare Mr maestri's tenure at Apple with Mr Oppenheimer his predecessor it was much more challenging to the extent that he had to deal with the covid-19 pandemic and when he led Apple's Financial uh they did not have the the regular uh beat uh that they always had under Peter Oppenheimer so I think Mr mestri had a much more challenging time when he was CFO versus his predecessor so what do we need to know what do investors in particular need to know about Kevin Pere and the path forward for him how prepared is he to carry the torch forward for Apple yeah so I think that Apple's got a deep bench when it comes to their financial or finance department uh you saw that earlier this year when one one of their Executives left to be CFO of Sonos so I'm not concerned in that regard uh the other challenge though that Mr pre and harits that Luca didn't have at least at the beginning of his tenure is the Anti-Trust lawsuit so these are challenging times for apple on multiple fronts from a regulatory front uh including what's going on in the EU with their uh laws as it pertains to the marketpl is and then it's a much more challenging time there's a lot of competition coming out of China so it' be challenge but I think he'll be up for it given his long tenure at Apple so far what what do you expect the cost discipline at Apple to look like under Kevin versus Luca as our own uh Josh Lipton was mentioning so I expect the the overall strategy to remain so Apple for the most part has acquired Talent their m&a has not been very big as far as large outlays of dollars I don't think that'll change I think they'll continue to return a lot of money to shareholders via BuyBacks and dividends I don't think that'll change the bigger question in my mind is uh when do we see a change in the seite at the CEO level so how long does Tim Cook in intend to stay on board he's done an amazing job he's the poster child for the best CEO taking over from a Founder so I'm curious to see you know when that'll take place and I think that'll have much broader implications for investors it would seem to me though that the way that the past 24 hours and and the planning leading up to this succession is a key indic Ator for shareholders of Apple about how a succession plan for Tim Cook could potentially materialize moving forward what do you think operationally Apple may be applying from the past succession plan for the CFO level to the CEO spot yeah so I think that essentially Apple's an institution I believe uh Steve Jobs implemented Apple University as a way of you know teaching things that are core to Apple's DNA to Future executives so an amazing transition from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook I expect the next transition to also go well likely from someone who's currently at the company and again Apple's an institution uh they're replacing from within at the CFO level and I expect when the day comes they'll replace from within at the CEO level as well while we have you Tom of course the big event that we're going to be watching come early September is really going to be focused zeroed in around the iPhone how much of a needle mover do you expect this to be for consumers but also for that to pass through and and translate into better Revenue better production financially for the company and for investors yeah Brad the challenge for apple is they're going to introduce new hardware but tell consumers that they're going to have to wait for the new software as it pertains to Apple intelligence so I think this may cause investors or consumers rather not to run to the store on the launch of the iPhone 16 and I'll be curious to see how the sales ramp in that regard to the extent that maybe you have more growth in the December quarter than the September quarter because Apple's introducing new hardware but consumers are GNA have to wait for the new software to do Apple intelligence so I think disc quar and this product launch will be unique in that regard all right Tom for thank you so much for joining us really great points and also I I particularly was interested in what you said about the CEO spot coming from within moving forward really important for investors to keep an eye out on those other names in the sea Suite given that uh advisement there uh Tom forde Maxim group managing director and Senior consumer internet analyst thanks so much