Riding on its growing services and wearables business, Apple may become the first company ever to touch the $2-trillion valuation mark in next four years, a top analyst has forecast.
Apple was the first US company to cross the $1-trillion mark in 2018.
According to market research firm Evercore ISI, the Cupertino-based iPhone maker would also be the first firm to surpass $2 trillion, reports Barron’s.
In an investor note first spotted by Barron’s, famed analyst Amit Daryanani has listed what Apple needs to do to cross the $2-trillion threshold.
One of the keys to achieve this is Apple’s growing Services and Wearables businesses.
In the Wearables business, the analyst expects growth to $60 billion owing to the expansion of AirPods and Apple Watch. The Services business could grow to $100 billion in the next four years.
The analyst expects Apple to continue aggressively buying back stock.
“Apple would reduce its share count by about 1 billion shares in the forecast period, from 4.6 billion at the end of fiscal 2019 to 3.6 billion in fiscal 2024.
“At that share count, the market cap would hit $2 trillion if the stock price was just over $550,” Daryanani wrote.
As iPhones sale dip amid supply and demand uncertainties, Services segment is following a different trend for Apple, with strong year-over-year growth of 17 per cent and setting a new all-time revenue record of $13.3 billion in the company’s March quarter results this year.
The company saw all-time records in many of its Services categories — App Store, Apple Music, Video, cloud services, its App Store search ad business, AppleCare, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, Apple News Plus and Apple Card.
According to Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, new services like Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, Apple News Plus and Apple Card continue to add users, content and features while contributing to overall Services growth.
Apple now has over 515 million paid subscriptions across the services on its platform, up 125 million from a year ago.
Wearables, Home and Accessories segment also established a new March quarter record with revenue of $6.3 billion, up 23 per cent year-over-year.
Apple Watch continues to expand its reach as over 75 per cent of the customers purchasing Apple Watch around the world during the quarter were new to the product, according to Maestri.