Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 debacle is great news for Apple, according to one prominent industry analyst.
Ming-Chi Kuo, a respected Apple analyst at KGI Securities, believes that between 5 million and 7 million lost Note 7 orders will become iPhone 7 sales instead. And the majority of these new orders will go to the iPhone 7 Plus thanks to its unique dual-camera configuration, apparently. That’s according to an investor note penned by Kuo and revealed by 9to5mac. Today’s report notes:
“KGI says Note 7 users will have lost faith in the Samsung brand and have a tendency to like iOS and camera features, making the new iPhone an attractive sale.”
Kuo says that Apple will snag around 50% of the ex-Note 7 customers (estimated to number around 12 million in total), while the rest will be shared out among prominent Android manufacturers such as Huawei. It’s also expected that a number of Note 7 customers will jump ship to Google’s new smartphones – particularly the Google Pixel XL, which is the larger of the two models the search giant is releasing.
Samsung announced the Galaxy Note 7 on 2 August, with the handset arriving to critical acclaim from reviewers who praised the impressive hardware, software and design. But exactly one month later, Samsung issued a global recall for the new phone after an internal investigation uncovered a serious battery flaw that was causing some users’ handsets to spontaneously catch fire.
Samsung is still trying to deal with the fiery Note 7 fiasco, with engineers reportedly struggling to pinpoint why even “fixed” handsets appear to be catching fire. As a result of the latest fires, Samsung has vowed to stop manufacturing and selling the handset, and is urging all Note 7 customers to turn off their phones indefinitely.
Related: Samsung Galaxy S8
Watch: Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review (pre-recall)
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