Apple (AAPL) Price Target Raised to $130 at Oppenheimer

(Updated - November 18, 2014 9:37 AM EST)

Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz reiterated an Outperform rating and boosted his price target on Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to $130.00 (from $115.00) citing the company's strong ecosystem.

In the report, Uerkwitz answers the questions why they believe Apple will continue to grow while: 1) broader high-end smartphone market will stagnate and, more specifically, 2) Samsung will see severe declines. He answers the questions with the following: 1) Apple now has the most comprehensive and complementary product portfolio in history; 2) its devices provide superior user experience and a converging interface across categories; and 3) Apple's service offerings and growing openness to external partnerships facilitate a stronger network effect that drives hardware sales.

Key points highlighted by Uerkwitz in his report are:

• Ecosystem - iPhone and iPad (to a lesser extent, Macbook) have matured and are able to cover the full range of user preference regarding size, power, portability, and feature sets. And with expected Spring launch of a watch, Apple has covered the past, present, and future of our needs for consumer-level human-machine interaction.
• User Experience - Apple not only progressed to enable a more consistent user experience across its platforms (OS X and iOS), it is forming external partnerships to transfer an "Apple-like" user experience to other verticals (think Apple Pay in retail). We believe these partnerships have a far-reaching impact on Apple's ability to sustain its own devices sales.
• Weaker Competition - We believe in the current product cycle, competitors are unlikely to provide compelling matching features to threaten Apple's major product categories.

The firm introduces FY16 revenues/EPS of $229B/$8.58. Meanwhile, their FY15 revenues/EPS are raised from $208.7B/$7.36 to $220B/$7.80 based on higher iPhone shipment and ASP assumptions

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 $113.99 yesterday.

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