Apple’s mixed-reality headset launch could be a key stock catalyst

Apple shareholders hoping for a push to the share price may need to wait until the start of summer when the company’s long-awaited mixed-reality (AR + VR) reality headset could finally launch.

Artist’s rendering based on the images of Apple's AR headset. Created by The Information.
Artist’s rendering based on the images of Apple’s AR headset. Created by The Information.

Adam Clark for Barron’s:

Apple looks in some ways to be the strongest of the major U.S. technology companies. It hasn’t had to implement mass layoffs and it’s poised to benefit from a rebound in Chinese demand. However, Apple is still slowly racking up bearish views from Wall Street analysts, concerned about consumer spending.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple, due to its superior customer demographics, is the last consumer electronics company to be affected by inflation and consumer spending concerns.

Evercore has a $190 target price on Apple, which traded at around $152 in premarket trading on Tuesday.

The Evercore analysts cite Apple’s higher operating efficiency than big tech rivals as a reason to justify a premium but that might not cut it in a market nervous about the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy and its effect on tech valuations. Restoring optimism around Apple stock could take the successful launch of another piece of hardware – a virtual-reality headset…

Analysts at Wedbush said in a research note that a headset launch in the summer would be a prime candidate to “move the needle” on Apple stock.

MacDailyNews Take: A $3,000 or so high-end headset – where Apple is widely expected to start – is going to be a magnet for the Apple naysayers brigade who will generate tons of digital ink about how “nobody will be a $3,000 headset,” Apple is nuts,” “flop,” “boondoggle,” etc.

This is the way it’s always been and always shall be.

A $3,000 headset might move the needle alright – to the negative, temporarily.

As always, ignore the Apple naysayers.

The big, “pricey” VR headset will, in part, exist as a means for developers to build the next killer AR apps for true, light, powerful Apple smartglasses. — MacDailyNews, February 4, 2021

Apple has the custom silicon. Apple has the installed base. Apple has the ecosystem. Apple has the services. Apple will have the profitable portion of the mixed-reality headset market. And then, a few years later, Apple will take the profitable portion of the smartglasses (AR) market, too.

And some people will slap their foreheads and lament, “I could’ve bought Apple shares under $140!”MacDailyNews, May 24, 2022

Apple’s smartgoggles will be cool, but it’s the subsequent Apple smartglasses that will change the world.MacDailyNews, July 11, 2022

Augmented Reality is going to change everything.MacDailyNews, July 21, 2017

Someday, hopefully sooner than later, we’ll look back at holding up slabs of metal and glass to access AR as unbelievably quaint. — MacDailyNews, July 28, 2017

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3 Comments

  1. Who needs a mixed reality headset, when you have the Democrat Party, Drag Queens doing shows for kindergartners (with their parents bringing them), untested vaccines mandated by the government that don’t stop the bad thing but could easily kill you, big banks going under with teams of investment advisors chosen for their skills in LGBTQ practices and skills, and wars started to help the President’s son get more signed oligarch contracts before the end of Q1?

  2. AR is going nowhere.. its not going to generate any killer apps, and Apple can ignore the nay sayers all day, its not going to change the fact that few will spend $3K for a VR headset that will largely play games and very little else.

    If AR itself was a genuine game changer, there would be more of it, and there isn’t. The software problems we hear about are probably delaying tactics to before the decide to kill it like their PowerPad or whatever it was called…

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