Apple AAPL stock hit another new high on Friday as it continues 2020 on the impressive hot streak it went on last year. The iPhone giant’s shares have soared over 100% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 is up just 25%.
AAPL stock has also crushed all of its so-called FAANG peers, with Facebook’s FB 53% growth the next closest, with Amazon AMZN up only 15%. Apple’s 12-month surge came despite the fact that its full-year fiscal 2019 sales slipped 2%. However, this downturn came against a hard to compare 2018, along with slowing iPhone sales and a downturn in China.
But AAPL’s non-iPhone business, from wearables to services, picked up the slack. AirPods, Apple Music, and its new Netflix NFLX challenger Apple TV+ are projected to help the firm grow going forward, as Apple continues to try to generate more revenue from its roughly 1 billion active devices.
Looking ahead, according to Zacks estimates call for Apple’s fiscal 2020 sales to climb 5.8% to $275 billion, driven by 16% services expansion. Then, Apple’s fiscal 2021 sales are expected to surge another 8% above Yahoo’s current-year estimate to over $297 billion.
At the bottom end of the income statement, AAPL’s adjusted earnings are projected to jump 10% in 2020 and another 16% in 2021.
Apple stock is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and the phase-one U.S.-China trade deal has given investors and Wall Street more confidence. On top of all of that, Apple executives have been pleased with the early success of its new iPhone 11 models and analysts project Apple will introduce its most updated iPhone in years during the fall of 2020.
Apple rings in new era of Services following landmark year
Apple has marked the close of a historic 2019 for its Services offerings, a year that introduced Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, Apple News+ and Apple Card, and celebrated the continued success of the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud and more experiences only Apple can create and deliver. Apple provides customers with the highest-quality services along with an unparalleled commitment to privacy and security, and offers creators and developers the opportunity to bring their creative visions to people around the world.
“2019 was the biggest year for Services in Apple’s history. We introduced several exciting new experiences for our customers, all while setting the standard for user privacy and security,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We begin the new decade with incredible momentum and gratitude to our customers who have shown such enthusiasm for all of our Services, and we continue to celebrate the work of the world’s best creators, storytellers, journalists and developers.”
Apple’s ongoing focus on the deep integration of hardware, software and services drove all of its platforms to new heights in 2019.
The App Store is the world’s safest and most vibrant app marketplace, with over half a billion people visiting each week. It remains the safest place for users to find software and provides developers of all sizes access to customers in 155 countries. Since the App Store launched in 2008, developers have earned over $155 billion, with a quarter of those earnings coming from the past year alone. As a measure of the excitement going into 2020, App Store customers spent a record $1.42 billion between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, a 16 percent increase over last year, and $386 million on New Year’s Day 2020 alone, a 20 percent increase over last year and a new single-day record.
