Wedbush Securities raised Apple’s price target to $450 from $445 and reiterated its ‘outperform’ rating for the technology giant.
"While Apple has shown some cracks here and there in its strong growth story,” Scott Sutherland said, “I think, overall, the fundamentals are in place for still solid growth for the stock.”
Apple is showing continued traction in the smartphone and tablet market, Sutherland said. He believes there is still a lot of room for expansion in the iPhone business, which is about half of Apple’s revenue and a key profit driver for the company. As for the iPad, Apple needs to get its supply issues fixed so it can catch up with demand.
“Having too much demand isn’t such a bad problem to have,” Sutherland remarked.
The Wedbush analyst also wasn’t concerned about the business model should CEO Steve Jobs' health cause him to leave the helm. Sutherland noted that a management team has been built outside of Jobs. And while Jobs has been a visionary on the device side, Sutherland believes Apple is now more of an execution play.
“I think they’re also moving more towards more of a cloud play, building these data centers where they’re going take the battle to internet-centric services, where then Google will come head-to-head,” Sutherland said.
0 comments