Apple (AAPL) Price Target Lifted to $160 at Canaccord Genuity on iPhone Domination

Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley bumped his price target on Buy-rated Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to $160.00 (from $155.00) after the firm's latest analysis showed that Apple dominated the high-end global smartphone market during Q1/C2015 with near-record share of industry profits and ongoing market share gains.

Walkley belives Apple's strong Q2/F2015 results and Q3/F2015 guidance are consistent with their surveys and analysis indicating a very strong iPhone 6 upgrade cycle should continue through C2015 driven by two primary reasons:

• First, given our estimate only 20% of the iPhone installed base upgraded to iPhone 6 smartphones by the end of Q2/F2015, we anticipate continued strong replacement sales to existing iPhone consumers.
• Second, consistent with management commentary, we anticipate continued high-end smartphone market share gains for the larger screen iPhone 6 devices as our surveys indicate a greater mix of Android smartphone consumers are switching to the iPhone 6 smartphones than in the iPhone 5 series launches.

"We believe these trends should grow the iPhone installed base to over 500M users exiting C2015, and this bodes well for future strong iPhone replacement sales, earnings, as well as cash flow generation to fund strong long-term capital returns programs similar to the $200B program announced on April 27th," Walkley said.

The firm raised FY 2015 EPS from $8.93 to $8.94 and FY 2016 EPS from $9.19 to $9.44.

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Apple click here. For more ratings news on Apple click here.

Shares of Apple closed at $127.62 yesterday.

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