On Wednesday, Wolfe Research analyst Jeffrey Kvaal raised his rating, price target and earnings estimate fo Apple shares, citing the belief that strong demand for the technology behemoth’s iPhones will continue.
Wolfe’s Kvaal raised his rating to peer perform, after being at underperform for roughly the past year. He also boosted his price target to $155, or just 1.6% Wednesday’s closing price, from $135.
The upgrade follows moves by U.S. wireless telecommunications operators to restore all promotions to existing customers for Apple’s iPhone 12s, which were released last year, Kvaal said. In addition, he believes Apple gained approximately 3% of market share in China at Huawei Technologies’ expense, and also achieved share gains in Europe.
He raised his fiscal 2021 estimate for earnings per share to $5.66 from $5.62, which compares with the FactSet consensus of $5.57, and lifted his fiscal 2022 EPS estimate to $5.85 from $5.79, above expectations of $5.64.
“In our view, healthy domestic operator promos and Huawei share gains drove strong iPhone 12 demand throughout the cycle. We expect both to continue with the iPhone 13,” Kvaal wrote in a note to clients.
MacDailyNews Take: Welcome to the $150s, Jeff. Better late, than never!
What a joke. Apple has good back to back to back earnings results and analysts are barely acknowledging it. I know it doesn’t matter what the analysts say, but I still think they’re at least slightly underestimating Apple’s value. One analyst says Apple has a 10% upside. Not as much as I expected but I’ll take it. $165 to $170 by year’s end sounds good to me.
How do other companies look when evaluated in this same way? Is everyone having good back to back earning results?