Analysts Provide Insight on Apple After New Details Emerge About the Apple Watch

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Mar 10, 2015
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At a press briefing in San Francisco on March 9, Apple Inc (AAPL) gave details on its new Apple Watch including information on its exclusive app store, battery life, and different versions of the product.

The Apple Watch is scheduled to go on sale on April 24 and will initially be available in the United States, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The device will be available for pre-order starting April 10. The company is also planning on offering a preview of the Apple Watch in its stores before it goes on sale. The different models of the Apple Watch will retail between $349 for the sport watch and $10,000 for the top-of-the-line watch.

Some of the Apple Watch’s major features include the ability to make and receive phone calls, read emails, make wireless payments through Apple Pay, monitor exercise and access music on a connected iPhone. One significant feature that Apple CEO Tim Cook highlighted was the ability for two people wearing Apple Watchs to send each other animated messages and ‘taps’ to simulate their heart beats. Someone wearing an Apple Watch will also get ‘tapped’ when he/she gets a notification. Additionally, the Apple Watch will be able to run third-party apps just the same as iPhones and iPads.

One big concern consumers had about the Apple Watch was battery life. Tim Cook assured that the watch should last up to 18 hours on a full charge, especially since it will only work when connected to an iPhone. With that said, the oldest iPhone model the Apple Watch will connect with is the iPhone 5 and will only run on the iOS 8.2 software.

Apple also revealed a brand new MacBook, similar to the MacBook Air, weighing only 2 pounds. Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing said the new MacBook is the "world's most energy-efficient notebook."

According to SmarterAnalyst, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster weighed in on Apple prior to the press briefing on March 9, reiterating a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of $160. In regards to the Apple Watch, the analyst expects “the long-term killer features will likely be developed by third-party developers that utilize the hardware in unique ways.” He added, “We believe that now that the Watch will be more readily available to developers on launch, the next year or so should offer significant insight into how creative developers can be and how interested their products make consumers.”

The analyst concluded, “Overall, we remain conservative in our expectations for the Watch in year one, but believe that the more important factor in the near-term is that this is the first new product under Tim Cook’s watch and could give us a sense for how to think about future product ramps (car, TV).”

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Gene Munster has rated Apple 133 times since January 2009, earning a 79% success rate recommending the company and a +32.5% average return per AAPL recommendation. Overall, he has a 72% success rate recommending stocks and a +29.6% average return per recommendation.

Similarly on March 10, Evercore analyst Rob Cihra reiterated a Buy rating on Apple, estimating that 18 million Apple Watchs will be sold this year, accounting for a 36% growth in revenue. The analyst said the Apple Watch “fits perfectly with Apple’s market.”

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Rob Cihra has rated Apple 24 times since February 2009, earning a 91% success rate recommending the technology giant and a +41.9% average return per AAPL recommendation. Overall, Cihra has a 67% success rate recommending stocks and a +17.1% average return per recommendation.

According to SmarterAnalyst, BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman also weighed in on Apple on March 10, maintaining an Outperform rating on the stock with a price target of $135. He noted, “We believe that applications for the Watch will grow over time, helping to drive adoption. The real surprise of the show was the new Macbook – we believe this notebook will sell very well.”

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Keith Bachman has rated Apple 72 times since January 2009, earning a 77% success rate recommending the company and a +36.7% average return per AAPL recommendation. Overall, the analyst has a 73% success rate recommending stocks and a +26.5% average return per recommendation.

On average, the top analyst consensus for Apple on TipRanks is Moderate Buy.

To see more recommendations for Apple, visit TipRanks today.