In a major report issued Monday that finds potential for growth in nearly every aspect of Apple’s operations, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty estimates that the company’s total addressable market — the business Apple might capture if it had no competitors — could grow from $800 billion today to $3.4 trillion (repeat, trillion) by 2020.
Tech companies, in Huberty’s view, are like sharks. In order to thrive they must constantly expand and improve their platforms and ecosystems.
These companies want their products and content to be ubiquitous and available everywhere, and/or they want their tools and devices to proliferate and become the preferred way to access content. It is both offensive — to gain more of the users’ attention — and defensive — to make sure their competitors are locked out or do not lock them out of a medium to reach users. As products and content becomes accessible anywhere, the only constraint left is time.”
Using U.S. Department of Labor statistics about how Americans spend their time, she examines three new product categories with which Apple could dramatically expand the reach of its ecosystem — an ecosystem whose profit margins and stickiness are already the envy of the tech world:
- Apple Watch. By monitoring our health and sleep patterns, Apple could invade even the 40% of our day we spend sleeping. A Morgan Stanley survey suggests that 10% of Apple’s current customers will buy the Apple Watch.
- Apple TV. Americans age 15 and older spend spend an average of three hours a day watching television — 12% of their day and 25% of their free time. Huberty believes Apple’s ability to curate content — to find the best stuff — could be a differentiating feature in Apple TV.
- Apple Car. Americans spend 10% of their free time traveling — mostly in private cars. Huberty doesn’t believe Apple will actually design and sell a car, but she does see a day where cars become the “fourth screen,” after PCs/tablets, smartphones and TVs.
.
Huberty has raised her 12-month price target for Apple to $160 from $133. That makes Huberty’s one of Wall Street’s most-bulling Apple analysts, tied with Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brian White. In Huberty’s bull case — where everything breaks Apple’s way — the stock goes to $190. That’s $1,330 in pre-split shares.
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple AAPL coverage at coins2day.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.
Watch more business news from Coins2Day:
