Apple could soar 25% on 'eye-popping' iPhone sales and strong demand from China in 2021, Wedbush says
- Apple shares could surge 25% on robust iPhone deliveries and strong demand from China, Wedbush said.
- Analyst Dan Ives raised his 12-month price target on Apple to $175 from a prior estimate of $160.
- The company is expected to smash Wall Street estimates when it reports first-quarter results Wednesday.
Apple's share price could surge as much as 25% on "eye-popping" iPhone sales and strong demand from China, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note Monday.
Ives raised his 12-month price target on Apple to $175 from a prior estimate of $160, representing a potential upside of 25% from its current level of $139 per share.
The iPhone maker is scheduled to disclose first quarter results on Wednesday, January 27 after the closing bell. Robust earnings should confirm the iPhone 12 "supercycle hype" as the company is expected to handily beat Wall Street estimates this week, Ives wrote.
Wedbush anticipates that Apple will see its iPhone unit deliveries ticking up by 5% in the 60 million to 70 million range for the March quarter, and in the low 40 million range for the June quarter with some upward bias.
"We have not seen a launch uptrend such as this in a number of years for Apple and the only iPhone trajectory similar would be the iPhone 6 in 2014 based on our analysis," Ives said.
Wall Street expects Apple to deliver about 220 million iPhone units for 2021. But in a bull-case scenario, and based on the company's current trajectory, Wedbush said the company has the potential to sell over 240 million units this year. More specifically, "250 million could be in the cards - an eye-popping figure," the analyst wrote.
That would handily beat Apple's previous record of selling 231 million iPhone units in 2015.
"With our estimation that 350 million of 950 million iPhones worldwide are currently in the window of an upgrade opportunity, we believe this will translate into an unprecedented upgrade cycle for Cook & Co. and represents a 'sweep the leg' moment against the lingering bear camp," Wedbush said.
Ives expects about 20% of iPhone upgrade demand coming from China, affirming the region's key role in Apple's success. "To this point, we are seeing considerable strength from the China region thus far with positive trends heading into 2021," he said.
While the analyst maintained an Outperform rating on Apple stock, he said the company could hit a market cap of over $3 trillion this year if it continues to execute deliveries at the current pace.
Apple's stock traded 2% higher at $143 per share in pre-market trading on Monday.