Apple Stock Nears $3-Trillion Market Cap: Analyst Says The Street Underestimated Its Growth

A well-known Apple AAPL analyst is sizing up the opportunity for the tech company as it nears a market capitalization of $3 trillion.

The Apple Analyst: Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives has an Outperform rating on Apple with a $220 price target.

Related Link: Apple Q2 Earnings Thump Estimates Buoyed By Robust iPhone Sales, Record Services Revenue 

The Apple Takeaways: Apple previously hit a $3-trillion market cap in January 2022 before suffering from challenges related to supply chain and overall macro economic items.

“Apple is on the brink of joining the elusive and exclusive $3 trillion market cap club this week as the stock hits $190.73,” Ives said in a Wednesday note. 

“(Apple) ultimately navigated a myriad of China supply chain challenges along with a softer macro over the last 18 months in Rock of Gibraltar fashion and thus Cook and Cupertino find themselves back against all odds on the doorstep of the $3 trillion market cap threshold this week.”

Apple bears and skeptics called out a “broken growth story” for the stock in 2023, the analyst said. 

“We believe the exact opposite has happened with Cupertino heading into a massive renaissance of growth over the next 12 to 18 months. In our opinion the Street has severely underestimated the massive installed base upgrade opportunity around iPhone 14 and now a mini super cycle iPhone 15.”

Apple's Services business is approaching $100 billion annually, with double digit year-over-year growth, he said. 

The Vision Pro headset was a headline event, Ives said, adding that the key to the launch is building out the Apple app ecosystem and moat. 

“We believe the bigger story is around essentially a new app store that will be built around this new form factor with the Apple developer moat a massive advantage in this tech battle for developers.”

The Vision Pro and app store could be the first step in the company’s push to build out its generative AI app ecosystem, the analyst said. Wedbush sees “thousands of use cases” for Apple with the new product.

Ives projects Apple hitting a market capitalization of $3.5 trillion and a bull case of a $4-trillion valuation by fiscal year 2025.

“Apple is playing chess while others play checkers,” he said. 

AAPL Price Action: Apple shares are trading flat at $188.01 on Wednesday. Apple shares are up 50% year-to-date in 2023.

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Photo courtesy of Apple.