With just a few days left in 2023, Deepwater Management's Gene Munster looked back at his 2023 tech predictions and listed his expectations for what the sector might look like in 2024.
The bulk of his 2023 predictions, including waning electric vehicle sales, market performance and Apple (AAPL) -) tech launches, panned out.
Headed into 2024, Munster expects next year to be a year full of high-profile tech acquisitions.
Related: AI trends: What experts, execs think artificial intelligence will look like in 2024
He wrote in a note Wednesday that he expects the social media platform Reddit to be acquired by an artificial intelligence company next year for access to its stores of data.
The site in June weathered widespread protests over changes made to its API that required AI companies to pay in order to train on Reddit's data. The API change effectively buried many popular third-party apps, due to the new costs associated with accessing Reddit's API.
Munster additionally predicted that exercise equipment company Peloton (PTON) -) will be acquired by Apple, as the latter seeks to expand its exercise tech segment into fitness equipment. Shares of Peloton have fallen hard from Pandemic-era highs. The stock, trading at around $6, is down about 20% for the year.
In January 2021 it was trading at about $150 per share.
The company still has a subscriber base of about $3 million users that Munster said could add close to $2 billion to Apple's subscription revenue.
In terms of other Apple ventures, Munster expects the company's Vision Pro headset to sell at least 400,000 units in 2024. And he expects the company to bring generative AI technology to Siri next year.
Shares of Apple are up roughly 50% for the year. The company, hitting a new 52-week high of $199 earlier in December, has a market cap in excess of $3 trillion.
Related: Apple has a fierce new competitor: a rising tech mogul
Tesla and EVs
The electric vehicle market, Munster said, will continue to slow in 2024, growing only about 25%. The EV market is expected to grow about 34% by the end of 2023, and last year grew roughly 60%.
But he expects the sector to begin surging again in 2025 "as consumer optimism around the category improves along with affordability."
Indeed, affordability is among the most significant areas of concern for a suddenly wary consumer base as EV adoption struggles to move into the mass market. Major automakers, taking note of subdued mass consumer interest, have injected a fair amount of caution into their electrification plans throughout the year.
The plan, however, is still to fully electrify fleets. It's just an effort that some automakers, like General Motors (GM) -) and Ford (F) -), now think will take a bit longer than they previously expected.
That pullback in EV investing by several major legacy automakers, Munster said, will enable Tesla to maintain its nearly 60% share of the U.S. EV market throughout 2024.
And while Tesla is reportedly working on developing its much-anticipated robotaxi, Munster doesn't think the vehicle will be announced next year. And he doesn't think it should be announced, either, saying that it's in Tesla's best interest to keep quiet on the robotaxi for now.
"The new vehicle’s selling 'feature' is its price and Tesla showcasing the upcoming vehicle would likely have a cooling effect on current low-priced Model 3 sales, a risk not worth taking in a year where EV sales will continue to muted," Munster said. "On top of that, the car will likely be produced in Giga Mexico which we believe won’t be operational until 2027."
Tesla's stock, trading at above $260 per share, has more than doubled throughout 2023.
Related: Former Ford CEO has a blunt warning for the electric vehicle industry
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