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Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi and Catalysts Host Madison Mills sit down with Goldman Sachs senior equity research analyst Michael Ng at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference to discuss the state of media and tech companies, from Apple (AAPL) to Disney (DIS).
On Monday, Apple (AAPL) unveiled its newest product offerings at its highly anticipated "It's Glowtime" event in Cupertino, California. Ng explains that the event "delivered in line with investor expectations," noting that historically, the company has underperformed the S&P 500 by 70 basis points on announcement days, and following the event, it underperformed by about 100 basis points. "We think that was in line with historical events. And when you look at the individual product announcements, it came in mostly as expected," he adds.
Ng reiterates his Buy rating on Apple, arguing that "there's an underappreciated uplift in their normalized earnings power as more people start to upgrade their iPhones." He continues, "We think that investors have historically thought about Apple iPhones at a normalized sell-through rate at about 225 to 230 million units. And we think that AI and some of the new product features that are going to get rolled out over the next few years is going to bring that normalized run rate closer to 250 to 260 million."
While there is debate among investors as to whether AI will be the demand driver for Apple, Ng is bullish on the technology. He also highlights that hardware changes will also drive an upgrade cycle as screen sizes increase, devices become thinner, and rumors that the iPhone 18 may potentially be foldable.
Turning to Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Ng believes that the company is managing its video business holistically. "The linear TV network business is certainly having challenges. Cord cutting is unrelenting, and paid TV subscriber declines will continue to occur. That being said, it's an incredibly cash-generative business and it helps to fund growth investments elsewhere in the Warner Brothers portfolio," he explains. He points to momentum in its streaming platform Max, and argues that "there's a crown jewel in the Warner Brothers film and television studio."
Meanwhile, Ng believes that one of Disney's (DIS) biggest challenges will be its succession planning. Investors have praised the company's growth under CEO Bob Iger, and Ng notes that before Iger's return to the company, Disney faced "a few missteps," especially in its film and TV divisions. "I think there's a tremendous amount of focus on what that succession planning looks like. One observation that I'll make is that they have an incredibly deep bench of talented executives across each of their business lines, theme parks, film and TV studios, and obviously at ESPN," Ng tells Yahoo Finance.