Bank of America and Merrill Lynch both reinstated Apple (AAPL) with a Buy rating and $120 price target. The analyst’s 2015 estimates are above the Street, largely due to expectations of an iPhone “super cycle” in 2015 of 195M units and higher.
An iPhone “super cycle” of 195mn units in F15, up 16% Y/Y driving our estimates of $220bn/$7.86 vs. Street at $200bn/$7.27, and (2) multi-quarter gross margin expansion driven by higher ASP from mix (30% of new model sales skewed to iPhone 6+) and incremental benefit from higher capacity models (mix to 64GB not yet in our estimates).Analyst Wamsi Mohan
Apple’s ecosystem is strong, and Apple Pay can easily be worth $10 per share in the next 3 years, with an increase of $0.50 per share for the EPS. Apple Watch can add $5/share in value over 2 years, said the analyst…I think this is grossly underestimated.
Then he talked about the pipe dream of all analysts that despise Apple…”its $165 billion chest of cash can be used to enter new markets, return cash to shareholders, and support dividend increases,” said Mohan. They expect the next leg up to be due to a growth in margin AND revenue, and switchers from Android…so, Apple is no longer a value company, it is back to being the biggest startup on the planet.
