Evercore ISI Reiterates Outperform Rating on Apple (AAPL)
Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanani reiterated an Outperform rating and $220.00 price target on Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)
The analyst comments "We hosted a call with an Expert in the payments space who has previously worked building payments products at Apple. The call added to our conviction that Apple has some solid growth runway around Apple Pay, B2C payments, and potentially B2B payments over the long-term. Apple Pay remains the main focus and most of the moves they are making in the space are driven by a desire to increase Apple Pay adoption. This includes more recent efforts by Apple to work with companies to help them use Apple Pay to replace their employee badges (similar to how Apple worked with transit providers to replace transit cards with Apple Pay functionality). Apple’s B2C payment efforts thus far have primarily been around tap-to-pay which targets micro merchants and enables them to turn their iPhone into a point-of-sale device. They are currently partnering with companies like Stripe to be able to offer businesses a wholistic payment service, but over time the Expert believes Apple may choose to try and handle the entire stack in-house. The Expert also noted Apple could leverage its growing presence in the enterprise space to enable more B2B functionality over time rather than continuing to focus exclusively on B2C. Net/net: We think Apple’s payments business remains largely underappreciated by investors as there is a ton of space in the broader payments ecosystem for Apple to set up toll booths. Maintain Outperform & $220 target."
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Shares of Apple closed at $189.87 yesterday.