Brighter Future of GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GTAT) – Will It Produce Enough Sapphire for Iphone 6?

This year, GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GTAT), no doubt, managed to remain in the news. The shares of the company were up by 76 percent, on yearly basis. Moreover, on the last trading day, August 8, 2014, the company started its stocks at a price of $15.36, with an increase of 2.37 percent.

GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GTAT), in 2013, entered into a deal with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) whereby GT Advanced had to put up a Sapphire manufacturing plant on Apple’s property. However, despite GT Advanced Technologies Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GTAT) huge market capitalization and its deal with Apple, a number of analysts did not give much thought to its stocks.

At the start of the year, the stocks traded in a range of $8; however, the prices shot up to $20 in the middle of the year. Currently, the stocks are being traded above the range of $15.

Since Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has not commented whether its iPhone 6 will have sapphire, and there is no definite way of knowing this until the new phone’s release, the stocks of GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GTAT) cannot be given full credit yet: in fact, market had been reporting mixed news over the year. According to some skeptics, Apple iPhones will not have sapphire at all whereas others were of the opinion that the Apple’s sapphire plant was facing problems and thus could not produce large volumes of sapphire covers.

The stocks of GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GTAT) fell down, when Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW), during its latest earnings call, announced that its sales for the upcoming year will soar by 20 percent. It is important to note here that Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) is the manufacturer of Gorilla Glass- a substitute to sapphire that Apple uses in its iPhones. Although Corning did not mention anything about sapphire or Apple in its earnings call, the investors, assuming that an increase in Gorilla Glass sales would mean a reduction in the sales of Sapphire, traded their GT stocks in large volumes.

Some market analysts are worried that GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GTAT) will not be able to manufacture enough quantities of sapphire for Apple’s new phone. These analysts are relying on the fact that Apple is releasing two varieties of its iPhone: one will be released in September with a smaller size whereas the other, with a relatively larger size, will be released in the fall. Analysts believe that Apple’s larger phone has been scheduled to release in the latter part of the year so that GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GTAT) can produce enough quantities of sapphire in time. Yet, there are some others who believe that GT is not facing any production problems and will be able to meet the demand in due course.

GT Advanced Technologies Inc., during its earnings call last week, announced that it will receive its final payment of $139 million by the end of October from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Hence, chances are that the company’s year-end earnings will ascend.