Wedbush set a maximum target on Apple stock. What drivers did he see?

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, known for his optimistic forecasts for technology stocks, raised his target price for Apple shares to a record high on Wall Street. He expects the stock to rise another 26% thanks to strong demand for the new line of iPhones and the recovery of sales in China. For the company has come a kind of hour X: hundreds of millions of users can update devices after a four-year pause, Ives suggested. Against this backdrop, Apple shares jumped 4.5% on September 22.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives reiterated a Buy rating and raised his target price on Apple shares from $270 to $310, CNBC reported. Ives' new target implies a 26% increase in the company's market value from the closing level on Friday, September 19, and is the highest on Wall Street, the channel noted, citing FactSet data.

Wedbush sees two main drivers for Apple's stock growth: strong demand for its new iPhone 17 line of smartphones and the opportunity to strengthen its position in the key Chinese market.

Ives believes that the market is still underestimating the effect of the updated smartphones. According to him, sales of the new models are already ahead of the previous iPhone 16 lineup by 10-15%, it is also likely to increase production of the base version and Pro model by about 20%, based on the data on shipments in Asia. The analyst emphasized that for Apple CEO Tim Cook it is a kind of X hour, when many users may decide to swap their old iPhones for new ones, which will trigger the company's revenue growth after several years of weak growth.

"The combination of consumers' pent-up upgrade cycle - we estimate that 315 million of the world's 1.5 billion iPhone users have not updated their devices in the past four years - along with some design changes and improvements has been the magic formula for the launch," Ives added in a note cited by CNBC.

According to Wedbush, the deciding factor in the new iPhone cycle will be China, one of Apple's key markets. "Although the release of the [thin] iPhone Air in China has been delayed [due to eSim regulatory issues ], we expect the situation to be resolved within the next month," Ives noted. - Now is the time for Apple to drive growth in China."

In trading on September 22, Apple shares jumped 4.5% to $256.6 at the moment. This was their highest since the end of December 2024. Since April, when Apple shares collapsed in parallel with the rest of the market amid uncertainty over duties, they have already recovered losses and added more than 45% from those lows, Bloomberg notes.

Since the beginning of the year, Apple's market value has gained 2.5%. Nevertheless, the company's shares are still lagging behind other tech giants, whose securities investors are buying on the back of the AI boom. By comparison, the Nasdaq 100 technology index rose 18% over the same period, while Nvidia, Alphabet and Meta added more than 30% each.

Glenview Trust investment director Bill Stone agrees with the Wedbush analyst and also noted that demand for Apple's new products exceeded expectations. "I think forecasts were underestimated, so the strong demand was a pleasant surprise, and when there's a positive surprise, it naturally supports the stock," Stone said as quoted by Bloomberg.

About 60% of analysts who have assigned ratings to Apple shares advise investors to buy them (Buy and Overweight ratings). Another third are neutral with a Hold rating, while the rest recommend selling (Sell and Underweight). The Wall Street consensus price target is $245.9, which is broadly in line with the last closing price.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor