In a note to clients — as reported by “CNN Money” (http://macte.ch/DWCy8) — Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi says an Apple victory in the patent wars with HTC and others could be worth US$30 billion.
He writes: “Should Apple prevail in forcing Android to rework some of its functionality, resulting in market share shifts, it could have huge, positive financial implications for Apple: we note that a 10 percentage point shift in smartphone market share from Android to Apple (the current run-rate smartphone market share is 46% for Android vs. 18% for Apple) in 2013 is worth an estimated $30B+ in annual revenue and $10+ in annual EPS to Apple.”
Sacconaghi says Apple appears to have the strong upper hand in its legal battle with HTC, but “we see the current rulings as only a warm up bout. A second Apple suit against HTC — as well as separate suits against key Android vendors Samsung and Motorola — involves its iOS multi-touch patents, which we believe are the key pieces of IP that Apple ultimately seeks to reaffirm at all costs, given their potential to undermine Android.”