Apple had some stumbles in 2016 and though its stock price has gained 9%, the overall market has done slightly better. But next year could be significant for investors, at least according to Citigroup analyst Jim Suva, who offered five reasons to bet on Apple shares in a report on Tuesday.
The first variable that Suva—among many others—points to is the 2017 iPhone overhaul, which is already rumored to include a full exterior redesign and some genuinely useful new features, like better OLED screens and wireless charging—at least on some models. Apple should sell 7% more ipHones in its next fiscal year, which starts at the beginning of October 2017.
Next comes the Trump bump, as the President-elect has been talking about lowering taxes on corporations overall and on cash U.S. Companies have stashed overseas. Cutting the corporate rate to 15% from the current 35% level could boost Apple’s earnings per share (EPS) by 6%, Suva calculates.
Apple is also the king of so-called un-repatriated funds, with $216 billion that have never been taxed by the U.S. Government as of the end of September. Trump has talked about imposing a 10% tax on such funds, down from the current 35% rate, which could give CEO Tim Cook and company a lot more money to buy back stock and further bump up earnings per share.
“Across our coverage universe, we see Apple as a significant beneficiary of Trump tax reforms,” Suva writes. “Apple is very well positioned to benefit from potential tax reform of either or both a repatriation tax holiday and or a lower corporate tax rate.”
The third possible boost for Apple’s share price could come from its services businesses, everything from iTunes song downloads and Apple music subscription to iCloud storage space. The services line is one of the fastest growing revenue streams at Apple, up 22% over the past year, and it has gotten more than a bit of hype from Cook on quarterly earnings calls.
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Then there are the untapped markets, always seemingly just over the horizon to becoming big money makers. Lately, Cook has focused on large corporate, enterprise customers as well as the massive consumer smartphone market in India as potentially under-exploited opportunities.
Finally, Suva notes that Apple’s market stats look undervalued compared to other, similar companies.
Still, aside from the iPhone “super cycle” that Suva and other analysts are predicting, some drivers have been in the mix for the past year or more.
Apple (AAPL) has been trying and largely failing to break into the India market. Apple has been growing its service business sharply, but the revenue still flows from sales of hardware, a fact which seems to have investors less than thrilled. And Apple has traded at a discount to other stocks by various measures for some years now, one of the penalties of being the most highly valued public company in the world.
Despite Suva’s five reasons, Apple still looks mostly like the iPhone company it has been for years. And to get the stock price booming again, it will probably take another boom in iPhone sales.
