Why Apple Earnings May Be Underestimated

Success in the past may present a tough year-over-year comparison for this quarter, but Oppenheimer believes this to be shortsighted. Instead, the firm believes that Apple’s unique advantages in ecosystem and user experience protect it from a slower smartphone market and macro concerns. Oppenheimer expects Apple to continue to grow iPhone shipments in fiscal 2016 and beyond.

Oppenheimer sees the stock as unfairly undervalued on exaggerated fears over long-term iPhone shipment trends and lack of “something new.” As a result the firm maintained its Outperform rating and $155 price target, implying upside of 42% from current prices. The shipment and earnings estimates for Apple remain unchanged as well.

Although data points for initial sales seem mixed, the firm believes investors should look not just at iPhone 6s, but at the overall platform. For 2016, for example, Oppenheimer sees the iPhone 6 continuing to sell well beyond its first year. Additionally, with the broadest ecosystem “upgrade” over the past year, switching and upgrading have never been more compelling.

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The firm see Apple’s Upgrade Program as a net positive in the near term for growing iPhone’s user base and accelerating the product replacement cycle beyond iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

In its report, Oppenheimer gave its bottom line as follows:

We believe fear over Apple’s growth challenge is exaggerated. We see Apple (especially the iPhone) continuing to benefit from two secular trends in consumer electronics: 1) upgrade to premium, life-style focusing products in developing countries, and 2) evolving device ecosystems that favor tight hardware-software integration and superior user experience.

The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for $1.88 in earnings per share (EPS) on $51.06 million in revenue. In the same period from the previous year, Apple reported $1.42 in EPS and $42.12 billion in revenue.

So far in 2015, Apple has kept relatively in line the market, with stock up only 1.6%, while over the past 52 weeks shares of Apple are up 14%.

Shares of Apple were down 1.8% to $108.83 Thursday morning. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $145.64 and a 52-week trading range of $92.00 to $134.54.

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