Happy New Year's, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shareholders. In the company’s first news release of 2017, Apple revealed
that it generated $78 million in App Store sales per day in 2016. New Year's Day App Store sales came in at $240 million, a number
Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster calls
“a blowout day.”
“Given the significance of the App Store to Apple’s Services business coupled with today’s announcement, we believe our previous
expectation of 15 percent y/y Services revenue growth in 2017 is conservative,” Munster added. Loup has now upped its projection
from +15 percent to +20 percent.
Sign Of Future Success
Munster believes the impressive App Store growth is a sign that Apple’s long-term transition from a hardware company to a
services company is right on track. In the most recent quarter, Apple’s services segment accounted for 13 percent of its total
revenue. Munster believes that number can grow to 30 percent within five years. He also expects services to account for most or all
of Apple’s overall growth during that time, while hardware sales remain mostly flat.
Apple shares were up 9.9 percent in 2016 and are up another 0.6 percent so far in
2017. The highly-anticipated iPhone 8
release expected this year will come on the 10-year anniversary of the original iPhone back in 2007.
Latest Ratings for AAPL
| Date |
Firm |
Action |
From |
To |
| Jan 2017 |
Guggenheim |
Initiates Coverage On |
|
Buy |
| Dec 2016 |
PiperJaffray |
Assumes |
Overweight |
Overweight |
| Oct 2016 |
Goldman Sachs |
Maintains |
|
Buy |
View More Analyst Ratings for
AAPL
View the Latest Analyst Ratings
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