The analyst raised her forecast for shipments of iPhones in the September 2022 fiscal year.
Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
Apple’s financial results for the June quarter should be better than Wall Street expects, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty says.
Huberty repeated her Overweight rating on Apple (ticker: AAPL) shares in a research note on Thursday, while inching up her target price to $166, from $162. She expects both the June quarter results and management’s forecasts for the September quarter to exceed expectations.
Late Thursday morning, the stock was down 0.6%, to $148.24. Earlier, it set a record intraday high of $150.
Huberty said Apple shares have rallied more than 20% since early June, a rally she attributes to three factors. First, she said, there has been a “flight to quality big tech names,” with Apple, Amazon. com (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and Facebook (FB) all outperforming the S&P 500 over the same period. Second, she noted that growth at the App Store accelerated in June, “supporting the view of secular services growth.”
Finally, Huberty said, data on Apple’s supply chain suggest strong growth in iPhone production. She raised her forecast for shipments in the September 2022 fiscal year to 238.5 million phones, from 231 million.
Even with the recent rally in the stock, Huberty says that she would buy shares heading into the launch of the iPhone 13 in September. “We see the combination of mature replacement cycles, increasing 5G adoption, improving retail store traffic, longer battery life and camera quality, and share gains against Huawei as drivers of iPhone outperformance,” she said.
For the June quarter, Huberty predicted revenue of $74.7 billion and profits of $1.02 a share. The Wall Street consensus view is that revenue will be $72.9 billion and that earnings will be $1 a share.
The results are scheduled for release on July 27.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]
