Apple returned to the top of the global market cap overnight, and the industry chain collectively celebrated.

On Tuesday, the Hong Kong and A-share Apple concepts and consumer electronics concepts swept across the board.

A-share Shenglan Technology, Kaiwang Technology, Yinli Shares, Jiebang Technology, Boshuo Technology and other stocks rose by the limit. Hong Kong stocks Sunny Optical and Cowell rose more than 7%, Q-Tech and BYD Electronic rose more than 6%, and FIH rose more than 4%.

Since early February this year, the A-share consumer electronics concept began to rebound from the bottom, and the cumulative increase is over 47%.

Great expectations for the iPhone 16 series.

After rising for 5 consecutive trading days, Apple returned to the top last night.

Last night, Apple hit a 52-week high during trading and its market cap is approaching $3.5 trillion (about RMB 25.46 trillion), surpassing Microsoft and returning to the top.

According to the latest news, Apple will further increase the stock of the iPhone 16 series.

Insiders of Apple's industry chain companies revealed that the target guidance for the iPhone 16 series this year has been raised to about 90 million units after adjustment.

As for the reason for the adjustment, market analysts believe that it may be related to Apple's sales strategy during the 618 e-commerce promotion period.

During the 618 period this year, the significant discount promotion of the iPhone 15 series significantly stimulated the growth of sales, which may also have given Apple high expectations for the iPhone 16 series.

Data shows that under discounted promotions, the domestic shipments of iPhones this May increased by 40%, continuing the rebound in April.

In addition, at the Apple Developer Conference in June, Apple officially launched the personal intelligence system Apple Intelligence, which will be integrated into the next generation of systems such as iOS 18.

At the same time, it also teamed up with OpenAI to deeply integrate ChatGPT into the Apple product matrix.

This also means that the iPhone 16 series pre-installed with iOS 18 will bring new AI functions at the autumn conference, which is expected to attract many users to upgrade their phones and boost weak iPhone sales this year.

Morgan Stanley analysts believe that the introduction of Apple AI will stimulate consumers' demand for upgrades.

Due to the need for powerful AI computing power to support it, currently only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max support AI, and users with old iPhones must replace them with the iPhone 16 series if they want to experience Apple AI.

Is this an opportunity for the fruit chain?

Apple's upward adjustment of its stockpiling target indicates that its confidence in the new machine has strengthened, and the fruit chain is expected to usher in investment opportunities.

Market research data shows that there are currently about 1.4 billion stock iPhones in the world, but the proportion of iPhone 15 Pro and above models is less than 10%, about 0.14 billion units.

If the penetration rate of existing users reaches 30% in the next three years, there will be a demand for more than 0.4 billion replacement phones. After deducting about 0.1 billion existing phones, there is still an average annual replacement gap of 0.1 billion phones, so the demand space is quite large.

This scale of replacement demand is unprecedented in the past 3-5 years.

Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said that optimistic signs of iPhone growth are emerging in various markets after a better-than-expected performance in the first quarter, and the second quarter will be the last quarter of negative growth in the Chinese market, and the turning point of growth will start from the third quarter.

The Chinese market is still the key to Apple's growth. The analyst pointed out that this key region will see growth again starting from iPhone 16.

With Apple's AI promoting the upgrade of hardware and the replacement cycle, Apple's industry chain is welcoming investment opportunities.

Cinda Securities believes that the Apple Intelligence released by Apple demonstrates the long-term, forward-looking, and comprehensive nature of the company's AI strategy. With years of experience and technology accumulated in user experience, Apple Intelligence may help the company create differentiation competitive advantages.

As a benchmark enterprise in the consumer electronics industry, Apple is expected to once again lead the growth wave of AI in the consumer electronics industry.

In addition, Apple's sales in China have declined in the early stage and have recovered to a certain extent in the short term, but its valuation is still relatively low. In the second half of the year, Apple's new machines will be released, and the impact on sales may be more moderate than last year, so the current opportunity of the supply chain is worth paying attention to.

China Merchants Securities also believes that Apple's AI will only be supported by the iPhone 15 Pro series, and it is expected to promote the replacement of old users. It is estimated that the overall shipment of the iPhone in 2024 should be relatively stable or only slightly decreased by single digits, and with the subsequent innovative models, it is expected to walk out of a continuous upward trend from 2025 to 2027.

Apple is expected to enter an upward innovation cycle in the next three years, and it is recommended to seize the opportunity to layout high-quality companies in the industry chain. Apple's AI model will accelerate the upgrade of consumer terminals, which is expected to promote a new round of replacement cycles.