Apple Inc (AAPL) hit an all time high today riding a strong market post rate increase news from the Fed. Apple rose over 1% to hit a record high of 140.75 during the day and closing the day at 140.46. Impressive growth for a company of Apple’s which was trading at 118 dollars back in January of this year.
A lot of the growth in the stock is based off of the overall market and increased interest & price targets across the map from investment banks such as Citi, Credit Suisse, & RBC. For example RBC Capital Markets just increased their price target over 10% from 140 to 155. This was based on the fact that Apple’s service side of the business is growing at a faster and stronger rate than previously projected.
The service side of Apple’s business consist of areas such as the App Store, AppleCare, the fast growing payment processor Apple Pay, iTunes & Apple Music to name a few.
These areas of the business have grown exponentially over the last few years and projects to keep growing at an impressive rate. Apple services accounted for nearly 10% of Apple’s sales in the first fiscal quarter of 2017, producing over 7 billion dollars, up almost 20% from the prior year.
Apple hopes to double this revenue over the next few years, aiming for $50 billion dollars in annual sales by the year 2020.
RBC Capital Markets rates apple to outperform their market over the coming months.
Analyst Amit Daryanai had the following to say:
“Apple’s Services business has the potential not only to lift gross margins but to reduce cyclicality, further strengthen the Apple ecosystem and expand the range of strategic alternatives at management’s hand.”