New iPhone lacks ‘wow’ factor: investors

HONG KONG (Yonhap News) ― Apple Inc.’s latest iPhone unveiled Wednesday is lacking the so-called “wow” factor, as most of the new features introduced have already been expected, foreign investors said Thursday.

Apple introduced the iPhone 5, of which new features include a faster network, a more efficient processor, a thinner design and a bigger 4-inch screen. The product will hit nine countries on Sept. 21 and 100 countries by the end of 2012.

“In our view, the key difference against other recent high-end smartphone announcements is the sleek form factor,” said Michael Bang, an analyst at U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs.

“For other hardware features, Apple is just in line with or behind what Android smartphones have adopted, such as the screen size.”

William Blair & Co. said iPhone 5 did not have features that could change the industry game.

“While we were impressed with the product’s improvements and the aggressive roll-out schedule, the announcement did lack the wow factor we have seen in some of Apple’s new product announcements,” said Anil Doradla of William Blair & Co.

UBS held a similar view, despite being positive overall on the launch of the new iPhone model.

“Apple has an uncanny knack of identifying ‘jobs to be done,’ which are unmet customer needs in disruptive technology nomenclature,” said Steven Milunovich, a UBS analyst.

“Today’s introductions are impressive but mostly about doing current jobs better.”

Nomura International had a stronger view, saying the iPhone 5 failed to advance beyond the predecessor iPhone 4S.

“The actual hardware specifications do not exceed those of existing competing devices and also what is already known or leaked across the market,” said CW Chung at Nomura.

“The Apple way worked very well in the past before competitors emerged. We thought that the iPhone 5 might bring it further forward, beyond the shadow of the iPhone 4S, yet this doesn’t appear to us to be the case this time. Ironically, even iPhone 4S seems to have become a competitor of the iPhone 5.”

Meanwhile, local analysts in South Korea, where Samsung Electronics Co., currently Apple’s fiercest rival is based, were divided on their views.

Taurus Investment & Securities said Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics Inc., another South Korean player, will benefit rather than hurt from the iPhone release.

“Apple seems to have difficulty in maintaining their innovative beginnings,” said Kim Yoo-jin, an analyst at Taurus Investment.

Kim Hue-jae of Daishin Securities disagreed, citing the new iPhone’s adoption of the fourth-generation LTE network, a wireless technology that enables faster connections than existing third-generation networks.

“The iPhone shows a significant enhancement only with the fact that it runs on LTE. It will help boost LTE operators to boost their subscribers,” Kim said.