Apple Stock News
Apple Stock News: Apple is currently laying the groundwork for a sizeable boost in the Services business. This is on top of the stellar success the Services business already had in the most recent quarter when it grew over 24% to $8.5B in revenue. The Services segment is composed of the App store, Apple Music, iCloud, and Apple Pay.
According to CFRA Research analyst, Angelo Zino, expect a lot to happen to Apple Services in the next few years. The quickest way to increase market value and reach $1T or even $2T in market value is to get a higher stock multiple on top of earnings growth. This is where Services comes into play. With Services growing at a 20% clip, if Apple can keep it up, it will help Apple increase its multiple. Service firms typically have higher multiples than hardware firms. Currently, Services is only 13% of total revenues, but it could soon grow to 20% of total revenues and 33% of total profits. Not to mention if virtual-reality games and other augmented reality services become popular, Services growth could surge to 30%.
CEO Tim Cook has mentioned in the past how Apple is preparing for an augmented-reality (AR) and virtual-reality future. With that said, Apple is rumored to be working on a rear-facing 3D sensor system for the iPhone in 2019. This would help Apple turn the iPhone into the leading AR device. Also on the rumor mill is that Apple will launch a subscription video-on-demand service in 2018 to take on Netflix and others in the highly competitive and quickly growing space. Both of these developments would help Apple to achieve its goal of doubling Services revenue by 2020.
Other News
In other news, according to Canalys, Apple is now the leader in the wearables space due to the success of the Apple Watch Series 3. It was revealed on the last conference call that Watch unit sales were up 50% and the entire wearable business was up 75% YoY. This is just another example of Apple’s effort to build up the non-iPhone segments of the company.
It was also reported that Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway added 3.9M shares of Apple in the third quarter. As many investors follow Buffet’s lead, it could lead to increased demand for Apple stock in the near term.
Although Apple’s stock price has pulled back in the past week and there could be more uncertainty in the near term, the long term story remains bullish.
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