An attendee holds two iPhones 16 as Apple holds an event at the Steve Jobs Theater on its campus in Cupertino, California, U.S. September 9, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Apple shares slid 3.6% in Monday morning trading, after reports that demand for the new iPhone 16 is lower than expected — and down 12% year over year from the first-weekend sales of the iPhone 15 last year, TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote in a note.
“The key factor is the lower-than-expected demand for the iPhone 16 Pro series,” Kuo wrote after compiling data from Apple’s websites on each iPhone 16 model’s pre-order sales, average delivery times and shipments before pre-order.
Kuo added that one of the “key factors” of lower demand is that the “major selling point, Apple Intelligence, is not available at launch alongside the iPhone 16 release. Additionally, intense competition in the Chinese market continues to impact iPhone demand.”
Last Monday, Apple unveiled new versions of the iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at an event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California. Pre-orders for the new iPhones began Friday and launch on Sept. 20, but the first Apple Intelligence features for iPhone 16 won’t launch until next month, in a beta version.
Analysts at Barclays, JPMorgan and Bank of America also wrote in investor notes that shipping times could translate to lighter demand for the newest iPhone Pro models, compared to last year.
“Based on our conversations with distributors and analysis of pre-order figures on major Chinese e-commerce sites, total pre-order units were down Y/Y within the first couple of days, with a lower pro model mix,” Barclays analysts wrote in a note. “We heard that pro model units were down double digits on a Y/Y basis, while base and plus models grew Y/Y.”
The Barclays analysts added that the rollout of Apple Intelligence in the Chinese language “is not until CY2025, which may dampen early enthusiasm for IP16. Weak macro and competition continue to weigh on iPhone sales in China.” They also wrote that Apple had to rely on significant discounts to help China sales for the iPhone 15.
When tracking key markets’ delivery lead times as a demand indicator, the JPMorgan analysts wrote that “early lead-times are indicating demand on the iPhone 16 base models in-line to the iPhone 15 series during Week 1 (e.g., Pre-Order Week), while early demand indicators for Pro models are starting off modestly softer relative to the iPhone 15 series.”
BofA analysts wrote that after tracking iPhone ship dates on Apple’s own website and various carrier websites, ship time “for the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max models are extended, but somewhat less (on average) compared to last year at this point in the pre-order cycle.”
They added that “though the extension of ship dates can be reflective of iPhone demand, other factors such as supply, inventory, allocation and pricing could be impacting the ship dates.” The analysts also wrote that Apple reduced iPhone 16 prices in Australia and India.
The iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max are Apple’s more premium phones that have nicer screens and cameras than the regular models, starting at $999 and $1,199, respectively.
The Pro models have the “thinnest borders on any Apple product,” Apple said at its event last week, calling them “by far our best iPhone displays ever.” The titanium is nearly half the weight of stainless steel and is “more scratch resistant than other forms of titanium others have used.”
The company also said during the event the new iPhone 16 Pro Max has “the best iPhone battery life ever” but did not offer additional details.
The Datadog stand is being displayed on day one of the AWS Summit Seoul 2024 at the COEX Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul, South Korea, on May 16, 2024.
Chris Jung | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Datadog shares were up 10% in extended trading on Wednesday after S&P Global said the monitoring software provider will replace Juniper Networks in the S&P 500 U.S. stock index.
S&P Global is making the change effective before the beginning of trading on July 9, according to a statement.
Computer server maker Hewlett Packard Enterprise, also a constituent of the index, said earlier on Wednesday that it had completed its acquisition of Juniper, which makes data center networking hardware. HPE disclosed in a filing that it paid $13.4 billion to Juniper shareholders.
Over the weekend, the two companies reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, which had sued in opposition to the deal. As part of the settlement, HPE agreed to divest its global Instant On campus and branch business.
While tech already makes up an outsized portion of the S&P 500, the index has has been continuously lifting its exposure as the industry expands into more areas of society.
Stocks often rally when they’re added to a major index, as fund managers need to rebalance their portfolios to reflect the changes.
New York-based Datadog went public in 2019. The company generated $24.6 million in net income on $761.6 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, according to a statement. Competitors include Cisco, which bought Splunk last year, as well as Elastic and cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.
Datadog has underperformed the broader tech sector so far this year. The stock was down 5.5% as of Wednesday’s close, while the Nasdaq was up 5.6%. Still, with a market cap of $46.6 billion, Datadog’s valuation is significantly higher than the median for that index.
A representation of cryptocurrency Ethereum is placed on a PC motherboard in this illustration taken on June 16, 2023.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Stocks tied to the price of ether, better known as ETH, were higher on Wednesday, reflecting renewed enthusiasm for the crypto asset amid a surge of interest in stablecoins and tokenization.
“We’re finally at the point where real use cases are emerging, and stablecoins have been the first version of that at scale but they’re going to open the door to a much bigger story around tokenizing other assets and using digital assets in new ways,” Devin Ryan, head of financial technology research at Citizens.
On Tuesday, as bitcoin ETFs snapped a 15-day streak of inflows, ether ETFs saw $40 million in inflows led by BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust. ETH ETFs came back to life in June after much concern that they were becoming zombie funds.
The price of the coin itself was last higher by 5%, according to Coin Metrics, though it’s still down 24% this year.
Ethereum has been struggling with an identity crisis fueled by uncertainty about the network’s value proposition, weaker revenue since its last big technical upgrade and increasing competition from Solana. Market volatility, driven by geopolitical uncertainty this year, has not helped.
The Ethereum network’s smart contracts capability makes it a prominent platform for the tokenization of traditional assets, which includes U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee this week called Ethereum “the backbone and architecture” of stablecoins. Both Tether (USDT) and Circle‘s USD Coin (USDC) are issued on the network.
BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund (known as BUIDL, which stands for USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund) also launched on Ethereum last year before expanding to other blockchain networks.
Tokenization is the process of issuing digital representations on a blockchain network of publicly traded securities, real world assets or any other form of value. Holders of tokenized assets don’t have outright ownership of the assets themselves.
The latest wave of interest in ETH-related assets follows an announcement by Robinhood this week that it will enable trading of tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs across Europe, after a groundswell of interest in stablecoins throughout June following Circle’s IPO and the Senate passage of its proposed stablecoin bill, the GENIUS Act.
Ether, which turns 10 years old at the end of July, is sitting about 75% off its all-time high.
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Honor launched the Honor Magic V5 on Wednesday July 2, as it looks to challenge Samsung in the foldable space.
Honor
Honor on Wednesday touted the slimness and battery capacity of its newly launched thin foldable phone, as it lays down a fresh challenge to market leader Samsung.
The Honor Magic V5 goes will initially go on sale in China, but the Chinese tech firm will likely bring the device to international markets later this year.
Honor said the Magic V5 is 8.8 mm to 9mm when folded, depending on the color choice. The phone’s predecessor, the Magic V3 — Honor skipped the Magic V4 name — was 9.2 mm when folded. Honor said the Magic V5 weighs 217 grams to 222 grams, again, depending on the color model. The previous version was 226 grams.
In China, Honor will launch a special 1 terabyte storage size version of the Magic V5, which it says will have a battery capacity of more than 6000 milliampere-hour — among the highest for foldable phones.
Honor has tried hard to tout these features, as competition in foldables ramps up, even as these types of devices have a very small share of the overall smartphone market.
Honor vs. Samsung
Foldables represented less than 2% of the overall smartphone market in 2024, according to International Data Corporation. Samsung was the biggest player with 34% market share followed by Huawei with just under 24%, IDC added. Honor took the fourth spot with a nearly 11% share.
Honor is looking to get a head start on Samsung, which has its own foldable launch next week on July 9.
Francisco Jeronimo, a vice president at the International Data Corporation, said the Magic V5 is a strong offering from Honor.
“This is the dream foldable smartphone that any user who is interested in this category will think of,” Jeronimo told CNBC, pointing to features such as the battery.
“This phone continues to push the bar forward, and it will challenge Samsung as they are about to launch their seventh generation of foldable phones,” he added.
At its event next week, Samsung is expected to release a foldable that is thinner than its predecessor and could come close to challenging Honor’s offering by way of size, analysts said. If that happens, then Honor will be facing more competition, especially against Samsung, which has a bigger global footprint.
“The biggest challenge for Honor is the brand equity and distribution reach vs Samsung, where the Korean vendor has the edge,” Neil Shah, co-founder of Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.
Honor’s push into international markets beyond China is still fairly young, with the company looking to build up its brand.
“Further, if Samsung catches up with a thinner form-factor in upcoming iterations, as it has been the real pioneer in foldables with its vertical integration expertise from displays to batteries, the differentiating factor might narrow for Honor,” Shah added.
Vertical integration refers to when a company owns several parts of a product’s supply chain. Samsung has a display and battery business which provides the components for its foldables.
In March, Honor pledged a $10 billion investment in AI over the next five years, with part of that going toward the development of next-generation agents that are seen as more advanced personal assistants.
Honor said its AI assistant Yoyo can interact with other AI models, such as those created by DeepSeek and Alibaba in China, to create presentation decks.
The company also flagged its AI agent can hail a taxi ride across multiple apps in China, automatically accepting the quickest ride to arrive? and cancelling the rest.