The tech giant, Apple (AAPL, Financial), had a great past year with the iPhone 6 series getting the mass attention and being applauded as the best smartphone launched in 2014. The tech honcho is now looking forward to bring out better creations this year starting with the “Watch” which it believes will compete with the other wrist smartwatches and will emerge the ultimate winner. Besides, it has already laid the foundation stone for Apple Pay which is yet to spread its wings in the financial world. Let’s dig deeper and find out what analysts are expecting Apple to achieve this year and whether the views being given could see the light of the day.
Apple Pay becoming the new payment mode
The iPhone 6 is being promoted in ads through the Apple Pay which allows customers pay for the items in retail stores with a wave of their Apple phones. This payment system is being adopted by several banks, retailers and credit card companies than previous offerings from Google (GOOG) or cellular carriers like Verizon (VZ, Financial) and AT&T (T, Financial). Data suggests that some early adopters are also ready to try this new payment mode.
Analysts’ however opine that the success of Apple Pay lies in the hands of the people behind the counter, but obviously they are optimistic on the success rate being higher than seen in case of Google Wallet or Square Wallet. In fact, the merchants would ultimately determine the life of the Apple Wallet.
But even in the early days, the Apple Wallet has created a type of hype before it actually enters into the mainstream of mobile payments. Thus, it might be anticipated that there could be better adoption of Apple Pay by banks and retail merchants in the pursuant months of the year.
Apple Watch acting as the next catalyst
The new product that Apple will release this spring is the smartwatch which would mark its entry into the smartwatch segment and analysts’ have opined that this Watch would compete with the Samsung (SSNLF, Financial) Gear series that are already selling in the market.
Notably, sales estimate for the Apple Watch range from 10 million to 60 million in 2015. This seems to be a crazy range but nothing is impossible for a company like Apple which had sold 14.8 million units of iPad in the first year of its sale which actually exceeded all projections for the year.
However, to achieve this sales target, it would require more than 15% of the iPhone users to become Apple Watch converts.
Surveys completed by Morgan Stanley (MS, Financial) suggest that 10% will "definitely buy" and 18% would "probably buy" the Apple Watch. In fact, the purchase intent percentages are higher than that estimated during the iPhone or iPad launches by the tech honcho.
Last word
Apple certainly had an excellent 2014, with the stock up by a whopping 40% through the year. Investors are confident that the Apple Pay would receive widespread appreciation and the Watch would create a strong hold in the battle of the wrists. Though competition from the proliferation of Android devices is apparent, Apple remains the tech king and knows which card to use to keep its top and bottom lines in place. Let’s stay tuned and keep watching the further moves of Apple to maintain its stand in the technology domain.
