Evercore ISI has maintained its Outperform rating on Apple with a $325.00 price target, pointing to stabilizing App Store revenue growth. This implies significant upside potential from the current share price of $266.31.
The App Store recorded 6% year-over-year revenue growth in December, marking the second consecutive month at this growth rate. Gaming, which represents 44% of App Store revenues, declined 4% year-over-year in December, following a 2% decline in the previous month, and was either down or flat for seven of the twelve months in 2025. This performance aligns with Apple’s overall revenue growth of 6.43% over the last twelve months.
China and Japan, Apple’s largest Asian markets for gaming, showed particular weakness with gaming revenues down 13% and 15% year-over-year, respectively. In contrast, other App Store categories showed stronger performance, with Entertainment growing 3%, Social Networking up 11%, Music increasing 15%, and Photo & Video rising 18% year-over-year.
By region, U.S. App Store revenues grew 3% year-over-year, while China and Japan, Apple’s second and third largest regions, declined 5% and 3% respectively, primarily due to weaker gaming revenues. Growth accelerated month-over-month across the Social Networking, Music, and Photo & Video categories.
Evercore ISI estimates that the App Store represents approximately 20% of Apple’s Services revenues and expects Apple will supplement softer App Store growth with faster-growing areas such as Apple Pay, iCloud, and Licensing, as it did in Q4:FY25, which saw approximately a 4% difference between App Store revenues and reported Services growth.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple is scheduled to report its next quarterly earnings — for fiscal Q1 2026 (covering October–December 2025) — on January 29, 2026, after market close.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
