Bernstein says Apple widened price bands mirror Samsung’s playbook

Bernstein views Apple’s (AAPL) recent product launches as a deliberate strategy to widen the portfolio’s price bands to opportunistically gain share in the low or lower end, while raising prices at the high end to maintain margins there. The firm compares Apple’s strategy to what Samsung (SSNLF) did in the past. By widening its product portfolio price bands and inserting more granular price points, Samsung climbed from 4% to 32% global smartphone share in Q3 2013, the firm notes. Although Samsung’s market share ultimately couldn’t maintain these gains due to the rise of Chinese OEMs and low switching costs within the Android ecosystem, Bernstein thinks Apple’s iOS ecosystem stickiness gives Apple a much better chance to sustain any share gain. The firm has an Outperform rating on Apple with a price target of $340 on the shares.