Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is trading higher after another impressive earnings report. The biggest company in the world by market cap, and the world’s most profitable company, sold a whopping 48 million iPhone units. This was at or just under street expectations. So why is it that investors and analysts have such confusing views on Apple?

24/7 Wall St. has looked at the realm of analyst calls on Apple and it is nothing short of baffling. This might not matter with any other company nor on any other report. The problem here is that such a mixed reporting of followers is a deviation from the norm when it comes to Apple.

As Apple moves closer to the iPhone 7, one view here is that Apple’s growth may be hitting the pause button. That may sound like heresy to the diehard Apple fanboys, but that endless growth is really all around the iPhone. An Apple TV refresh and an iPad refresh may help, but that Apple Watch, the streaming music, iTunes and iOS “upgrades” have all come with mixed fanfare of late. Oh, and when was the last time anyone was talking up the new iPod or the great Mac sales?

Before we get to the slew of Apple analyst calls here, Apple made $1.96 in earnings per share (EPS) on revenues of $51.5 billion. That was against the Thomson Reuters consensus estimates for EPS of $1.88 and $51.12 billion in revenues. In the same period a year ago, the company reported EPS of $1.42 on revenues of $42.12 billion. For the fiscal year, Apple posted diluted EPS of $9.22 on revenues of $233.72 billion. Gross margin in the quarter totaled 39.9%, up from 38% in the year-ago quarter, and international sales accounted for 62% of all sales.

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The reality is that Apple had another very solid quarter. One other concern though may be that one has to wonder about the product that will fire Apple’s next growth spurt. Without that signal of innovation or the next great invented growth frontier, Apple is in danger of not only losing its cachet but its very tidy hardware margins.

Now take a look at an analyst call montage from a dozen or so calls that 24/7 Wall St. has put together on Apple. There is an upgrade, but there are firms raising their price targets and others lowering their price targets. These calls are listed below, with some only as a summary and with some having quotes and formal references. Frankly, Apple’s size and market cap, and where it is in the growth cycle, might merit at least some debate due to this wide of a disparity in the views, particularly in light of Apple’s latest short interest being the second highest short interest of 2015. Another consideration was that Apple shares were weak ahead of earnings due to what solely appeared to be weakness at one Apple chip supplier earnings.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch maintained its Neutral rating and kept its $130 price target. The firm said in its rationale for Apple:

We rate Apple Neutral on risk of : 1) Upcoming deceleration in iPhones after a strong product cycle 2) development of new revenue sources like Apple Pay, Apple Watch, home/health kit etc. that will take time to mature. Offsetting these risks are optionality provided by a significant cash balance that can help accelerate innovation into new markets.

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Canaccord Genuity reiterated its Buy rating and kept its price target at $160. The firm said:

Apple reported strong Q4/F’15 results above our and consensus estimates driven by strong Mac sales and strong initial iPhone 6S sales. We believe the current iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s should continue to post strong sales and high-end smartphone market share gains, as we believe only 31% of the installed iPhone user base has upgraded to the iPhone 6/ 6S smartphones and Apple continues to take premium tier market share with Android users switching to the iPhone. In fact, during its earnings call, Apple shared that 30% of customer upgrading a smartphone to the iPhone during the quarter were consumers switching from Android.

Apple continues to report strong results from China with revenue from greater China growing 99% y/y in the face of significant currency headwinds. We believe these trends should grow the iPhone installed base to over 500M exiting C2015, and this base should drive strong future iPhone replacement sales, earnings, as well as cash flow generation to fund strong long-term capital returns programs that at the end of F2015 have returned $143B of the $200B authorized to shareholders. We reiterate our BUY rating and PT of $160.

Credit Suisse maintained its Outperform rating, but it lowered its price target to $140 from $145. Credit Suisse said:

Given significant concerns around the sustainability of Apple’s growth, we believe the results were reassuring. With high retention rates, a superior ecosystem, and multi-product compute advantage, we believe such elevated level of earnings and Free Cash Flow of around $60 billion. We maintain our Outperform rating, and slightly adjust our above consensus 2016 earnings per share estimates to $10.40.

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Oppenheimer maintained its Outperform rating on Apple, as well as left its $155 price target unchanged. Its analyst said:

Apple delivered a solid September quarter despite FX headwinds and macro concerns. Apple’s 99% Y/Y sales growth in China and strong momentum in software/service revenues prove again that the company is competing at a different level from its competitors across product categories. We expect users from other computing platforms to continue to switch over, as iOS offers ever growing ecosystem advantages and superior user experience. Our FY16 EPS estimate is reduced from $10.47 to $10.23 due to more conservative assumptions for iPad and accessories. We introduce our FY17 revenues and EPS of $271B/$11.46. Our PT of $155 is unchanged.

S&P Capital IQ maintained its Strong Buy rating with a $150 price target. The report said:

Our 12-month target price is $150, on P/E of 14X our FY 17 (Sep.) EPS estimate (11.5X ex. net cash), above technology hardware providers. We raise our FY 16 EPS estimate to $9.95 from $9.76 and FY17’s to $10.70 from $10.67. AAPL posts Sep-Q EPS of $1.97 vs. $1.42, beating the $1.87 Capital IQ consensus. Sales rose 22%, on higher iPhone (48M units) and China sales (up 99%). Despite maturing smartphone space, we project new product releases and market share gains supporting growth. We see robust free cash flow (over $60B annually) and positively view switcher rates from Android.

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Wells Fargo maintained its Outperform rating and valuation range of $12 to $135. Wells Fargo said:

We are maintaining our Outperform rating on Apple. While the adding back of $5 to $10 per iOS device, which it had previously deferred over two years (it still defers some revenue on a per device basis but now $5 to $10 less), helps gross margin in the December quarter by 30 basis points (or, put another way, core gross margins would be 30 basis points lower without this accounting change), we believe investors will eventually look past this and, more importantly, believe Apple will use this incremental margin to take strategic actions to drive, in particular, iPhone 5S units. We expect this to drive units higher than the Street may anticipate for the December and March quarters, which we believe will be viewed positively. Further, we believe gross margin guidance of 39% to 40% is conservative though we should get further color once the 10-K is released.

Though we have never been one to argue a company’s multiple is low when excluding cash, we do note that Apple’s Free Cash Flow yield is around 10.7%. While concern might persist that Apple will pull March demand into the December quarter, we believe investors are not factoring in strategic pricing/carrier co-marketing actions that has historically proven to drive unit sales. We reiterate our Outperform rating and $125 to $135 valuation range based on 10 to 11 times our Fiscal 2016 Free Cash Flow estimate. We revise our 2016 earnings per share estimate to $9.66 from $9.48 and establish 2017 estimate at $9.76 per share.

Other key analyst calls were as follows:

• Barclays maintained its Overweight rating and raised its price target to $155 from $150.
• JMP Securities kept a Buy rating and raised its target price to $165 from $160.
• Pacific Crest raised Apple to Overweight from Sector Weight, with a $142 price target.
• Piper Jaffray has an Overweight rating and raised its price target from $172 to $179.
• Morgan Stanley has an Overweight rating, but lowered its price target to $152 from $162.
• Morningstar maintained its Buy rating and $140 fair value estimate.

Apple shares closed down about 0.6% at $114.55 ahead of Tuesday’s key earnings report. Its shares were up about 1.4% at $116.10 in the after-hours session initially after the report, and the stock was up 2.7% at $117.67 in mid-Wednesday’s trading. Apple’s 52-week range is $92.00 to $134.54 and Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of $148.63 before the earnings report.

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