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2021-09-08

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Apple Stock: Is Now A Good Time To Buy Or Sell? Wait For The Dip First To Buy

Summary Apple is facing potential headwinds regarding its App Store take rate, but investors should

Apple Stock: Is Now A Good Time To Buy Or Sell? Wait For The Dip First To Buy

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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":880666140,"tweetId":"880666140","gmtCreate":1631056074180,"gmtModify":1632885001457,"author":{"id":3581738832645942,"idStr":"3581738832645942","authorId":3581738832645942,"authorIdStr":"3581738832645942","name":"虎视Tan","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b8937bd48ee9805c92670bd1c3dd8e06","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":17,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Overvalued</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Overvalued</body></html>","text":"Overvalued","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/880666140","repostId":1139582863,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1139582863","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1631026413,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1139582863?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-09-07 22:53","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Apple Stock: Is Now A Good Time To Buy Or Sell? Wait For The Dip First To Buy","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1139582863","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nApple is facing potential headwinds regarding its App Store take rate, but investors should","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>Apple is facing potential headwinds regarding its App Store take rate, but investors should be reminded that such issues are nothing new for the company.</li>\n <li>Even though iPhone is still the key revenue and profit driver, investors should watch its fast-growing services segment closely.</li>\n <li>Nevertheless, Apple needs to demonstrate that it can grow its services segment quickly moving forward to justify its premium valuation.</li>\n <li>Given its valuation right now, it's hard for us to justify a Buy rating, but we don't encourage readers to bet against the company as well.</li>\n</ul>\nInvestment Thesis\nApple(NASDAQ:AAPL)recently celebrated CEO Tim Cook's tenth year in charge since its visionary founder, the late Steve Jobs, stepped down in Aug 2011. Under Tim Cook's stewardship, the iPhone continues to be a key revenue driver since reinventing the smartphone landscape 15 years ago and helped AAPL reached the pinnacle as the world's most valuable company.\nWhile the media focused their attention on the regulatory concerns regarding its 30% take rate from its App Store, AAPL's investors have largely brushed it aside as they turned their eye to the impending iPhone 13 launch knowing that having to contend with regulators is nothing new, and is largely expected, as they are smart enough to focus on the forest and not the trees.\nIn this article, we help our readers to focus on the big picture of Apple's burgeoning services segment, which we think investors don't give enough credit to CEO Tim Cook for, even as the company navigates high expectations with its iPhone 13 sales, 5G ramp and an expected slowdown in revenue and profit growth moving forward.\nWe will also present our valuation argument for Apple Inc., from the EBIT and EBITDA perspective, as well as our analysis of AAPL stock's price action to help investors decide whether to add exposure to AAPL now.\nApple Stock YTD Performance\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/11254a709c567ca88d28b9b8487819e0\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"331\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">FAANG YTD performance (as of 2 Sep 21).\nAAPL stock's YTD performance has underperformed Invesco QQQ ETF(NASDAQ:QQQ), together with Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), as Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOGL)(NASDAQ:GOOG)and Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)easily outperformed the trio with their fast-growing, highly profitable, and dominant digital advertising duopoly (that we highlighted in a recent The Trade Desk(NASDAQ:TTD)article, appendedhere).\nTheglobal digital advertising marketis expected to continue its stellar expansion as the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.3% from $378B in 2020 to $646B by 2024, while the global smartphone market (by shipment) is only expected to grow by 7.7% YoY in 2021 to 1.38B units, and YoY growth is expected to slow subsequently to 3.8% in 2022 and then to about 2% by 2025 according toIDC forecasts. Therefore we think that the 5G ramp will likely boost sales from Apple's 5G upgrade through 2022 before the going gets tougher moving forward. As a result, AAPL's share price may likely face growth headwinds due to the stock's current valuation, which we will discuss in the subsequent sections.\niPhone is Important, But Apple's Services Segment is Growing Its Clout\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/377a51d89975f674cdcc4911ec4a9893\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"396\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Apple total revenue (by FY and LTM) and revenue forecast mean consensus. Data source: S&amp;P Capital IQ\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b63aa2ec0d4263a3b5ed73478f7241c6\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"396\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Apple revenue by product (By FY). Data source: Company filings\nWhile consistent, Apple's revenue growth from 2016 to 2020 was certainly not spectacular as it grew by a CAGR of just 6.22%, even though 2021 has been a remarkable year as its LTM revenue reached $347B. Readers should also be able to easily glean that the Street is also not optimistic that Apple would be able to continue its stellar 2021 performance moving forward as revenue is expected to increase from $366B in FY21 to $447B by FY25, which represents a CAGR of just about 5.1% over the next 4 years, that's even slower than its FY16 to the FY20 CAGR.\nAn important point for investors to note is that iPhone's revenue actually fell in FY19 and FY20, and despite that, the company still managed to eke out an increase in revenue in FY20. Notably, Apple's services segment has been growing remarkably to support the company's revenue growth. Its revenue increased by a CAGR of 20.3% from FY18 to FY20. Its revenue also reached $50.2B based on its collective performance from Q1'21 to Q3'21.\nTherefore, while iPhone continues to be a vital segment for the company as it accounted for 54.2% of the first three quarters' revenue, astute investors have been keeping an eye on the company's fast-growing services segment, which they believe will be the key driver of growth for the company moving forward.\nIn fact, we think Roku(NASDAQ:ROKU)might even have found Apple's margins with its hardware segments enviable, as investors in Roku know that the Connected TV (CTV) platform leader uses a low-margin hardware penetration gameplan to attract users onto its platform for the company to leverage their highly effective monetization strategies (we shared this in a recent Roku article, link to the article is appendedhere), that the company was willing to even go into negative margins in Q2 to absorb the costs pressure relating to the semiconductor supply chain issues.\nHowever, Apple operates with a much higher gross margin for its hardware segments, which has been close to 40% over time, which has not only helped to make a tidy profit off its hardware but has also given the company a huge installed base of Apple devices to monetize through its services segment.\nIn our recent article on Digital Turbine(NASDAQ:APPS), we shared that iOS has a global market share of about 26.3%, against an estimated global installed base of 6.2B units in 2021 (link to the article is appendedhere). This means that Apple is expected to have a total iOS installed base of about 1.63B units by the end of this year that the company can leverage, and we think the potential is massive.\nAccording to Apple's filings, its services segment consists of sales \"from the Company’s advertising, AppleCare®, digital content, and other services. Services net sales also include amortization of the deferred value of Maps, Siri, and free iCloud storage and Apple TV+SM services, which are bundled in the sales price of certain products.\"\nTherefore, it's a segment with huge potential. Currently, the most important sub-segment within services is none other than its lucrative Apps store. Even more amazing is that despite iOS having only a 26% share of the global installed base, Apps store revenue has consistently outperformed Google Play revenue. The same trend is expected to continue as iOS consumers were expected to spend $41.5B in H1'21 compared to $23.4B for Google Play consumers from an earlierstudy in Juneby Sensor Tower. Using a 30% take rate as a basis, the Apps Store was expected to generate about $12.45B in commissions, accounting for 38.1% of H1'21 services revenue of $32.7B. Importantly, this is also a highly profitable segment, ascourt documentson Alphabet showed that its Play store posted an operating margin of 62.5% in 2019 (Google doesn't break out its Play store margins).\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/74e1421d1674431ff9e387d6ec8d4f62\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"396\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">App Store profitability estimates analysis. Data source: S&amp;P Capital IQ, various company filings, Reuters, Alphabet\nIf we consider Apple's overall LTM operating margin of 28.8%, then we are pretty sure App's store margins are a big deal, even though based on its annual run rate of $25B, it is only expected to account for just 6.8% of FY21 consensus revenue estimates. However, if we look at Apple Inc.'s FY21 EBIT estimates of $108.7B (estimated EBIT margin of 29.7%), the App Store is expected to account for 14.4% of Apple's total EBIT estimates for FY21. It's unequivocally a crucial revenue and profit driver for Apple to protect and sustain, especially since the App Store revenue grew 22.1% YoY in H1'21. Moreover, with Apple's iPhone sales doing extremely well in FY21 so far (iPhone's revenue for Q1-Q3 has already exceeded FY19 and FY20 total iPhone revenue), we think the momentum for App Store is only just getting started.\nThe App Store is a Key Beneficiary of Mobile Gaming\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f974b56f9fab5f9d406a8a2053249aa6\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"396\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Mobile gaming content market worldwide. Data source: Capcom; International Development Group\nMobile gaming is expected to grow consistently over the next few years, from $121.1B in 2020 to $169.7B by 2025, representing a CAGR of about 7%. We highlighted in our recent articles on Roblox(NYSE:RBLX)and Tencent(OTCPK:TCEHY)how mobile gaming's secular growth is not just a COVID-19 phenomenon (link to the articles are appendedhereandhere).\nTherefore, it's clear that the App Store is a key beneficiary of mobile gaming's secular growth, and we can definitely observe in its H1'21 performance as in-game spending increased by 13.5% YoY from $22.9B in H1'20 to $26B in H1'21, which also represented 62.7% of App Store's H1'21 revenue.\nTherefore, we are not surprised that the recent furor over Apple's take rate from the App Store has caused lots of confusion and chatter about whether it will lead to the dismantling of Apple's closely-guarded, highly lucrative revenue stream.\nWe think Apple has certainly recognized the need to placate regulators about its supposed \"monopolistic\" behavior by allowing theso-called reader appsto be exempted from its commissions. Still, it is important to note that this does not affect gaming apps and in-app purchases, thus allowing Apple to continue relying on their most lucrative gaming apps to drive revenue growth.\nDespite that, therecent billby the South Korean parliament to disallow app store operators from charging commissions on in-app purchases should be carefully watched, as this may have ramifications around the world if regulators were to follow the signal from South Korea. Nevertheless, we will like to remind our readers not to overreact to such developments but to keep calm and observe. Apple didn't get to become the world's most valuable company without overcoming its fair share of regulatory issues, and we should certainly expect the management to show similar resilience and fortitude as they had in the past.\nAdvertising is the Trump Card\nWe highlighted previously in our recent article on Amazon where we discussed why advertising is the most underrated segment for the e-commerce behemoth, as it's the company's fastest-growing segment (link to the article is appendedhere).\nWe think likewise for Apple; we encourage investors never to underestimate Apple's ability to monetize its users. We have seen earlier how, despite iOS having just 26% of the global installed base, the App Store revenue easily outsized Google Play's revenue in H1'21. With a global installed base that's 1.6B and growing, there are many monetization opportunities that Apple can certainly leverage.\nFor example, in our Digital Turbine articles (the most recent one ishere), we showed how lucrative the content discovery business for APPS is, even though the company mainly worked with the Android OS. Now, the company has a full-stack ad tech platform for its expanded digital media business. Therefore, we think this is a marvelous opportunity for Apple, as the owner of the iOS ecosystem, to expand on its content discovery offerings for its app developers who want to cut through the clutter of apps to appear in front of consumers, which is a $500M business for Digital Turbine's work on the Android OS. Although it's not a big deal for Apple, it shows various opportunities for monetization that the company can expand into.\nIn addition, Apple has also been able to capitalize on Google's advertising growth by using Google as the default search engine for iOS. Based onBernstein's estimates, Google paid about $10B to Apple for that in FY20, and thus it is an important revenue driver for the services segment, besides the App Store revenue.\nImportantly, Apple's ad revenue from its own App Store is estimated to account for$3B of FY21's revenue, up from a mere $300M in FY17, a 10x growth in 4 years. We don't find the projections unreasonable if readers refer to our Amazon article. The company grew its ad revenue by a CAGR of 74% from 2017 and 2019 and by 52% YoY even during 2020's pandemic year. The advertising momentum that Amazon has experienced from its e-commerce marketplace is truly phenomenal, which generates 90% of its advertising revenue, which was worth $21.45B in FY20, up from just $4.65B in FY17.\nTherefore we think the advertising potential from the App Store ads is likely to be in the early innings of its growth, and we highly encourage investors to watch this space closely. Even though Bernstein's estimates of about $20B (4.5% of FY25 estimated revenue) worth of ad revenue by FY25 may not be a blockbuster number when we compare it to FY25's estimated revenue of $447B, this is likely going be a highly profitable segment that can garner an operating margin in the range of 35% to 40% (equivalent to about $7b to $8B in operating profits) as we demonstrated in our Amazon article. Against an estimated EBIT of $104.9B by FY25, a 7% potential contribution from advertising that is growing is definitely an important diversification from the troubles brewing over its App Store take rate, as well as a potential slowdown in growth on its hardware segments.\nApple Stock Looks Fairly Valued for Now\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e307e213aa591ed575a94d8d851f02ae\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"365\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">EBIT multiples valuation comps set. Data source: S&amp;P Capital IQ\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02c49b9d4862250203a702d7038923cb\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"363\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">EBITDA multiples valuation comps set. Data source: S&amp;P Capital IQ\nWe think why investors have often found it challenging to understand the valuation for AAPL is because they often compared it to its smartphone peers such as Samsung(OTC:SSNLF)(KRX:A005930) or Xiaomi(OTCPK:XIACY), which trade at much lower valuation multiples (whether EBIT or EBITDA) as compared to AAPL, especially when AAPL is not expected to be growing as fast, moving forward.\nInvestors should observe that AAPL is trading as if it's a major player in the digital advertising market like its FAANG peers: Alphabet and Facebook. We think for investors to make sense of Apple's valuation, it really depends on how Apple will be able to monetize its huge installed base and grow its advertising revenue rapidly to convince investors that it's deserving of its premium price, even though it remains a highly profitable business, much more than Xiaomi.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c059c6e6a89d5a187415238276831a5b\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"246\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">AAPL Street mean target price. Source: Seeking Alpha Premium\nWe decided to give AAPL the benefit of the doubt and valued the company based on its estimated FY22 trading multiples (EBIT: 20.7x, EBITDA: 18.9x) and derived an implied fair value of around $143.9 based on its EBIT and EBITDA multiples at the midpoint of its fair value range. This suggests that the stock has a potential downside of about 6% (not including the margin of safety) from its last closing price of $153.90. Readers who would like to review our valuation models can refer to themhereandhere.\nMeanwhile, based on the Street's mean target price of $164.33, the stock is valued at an FY22 implied EBIT multiple of about 22.1x, which we think looks like a premium valuation that the Street is willing to extend the Cupertino company.\nPrice Action and Trend Analysis\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/06b641ba94ad84041dc4506b96cefb32\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"420\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">AAPL stock price action (weekly).\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/dc9058c67b259dc384c1912b1a5e9074\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"384\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">AAPL EV/Fwd EBIT trend.\nWhile we don't find a preferred entry point on AAPL right now, AAPL stock's long-term uptrend is unambivalent no matter how we see it. In addition, investors can easily glean from its EV/Fwd EBIT trend that the stock has never traded cheaply over the last 5 years with a mean EBIT multiple of about 14.6x, even though the market is willing to value AAPL at a much higher valuation now at 22.97x EBIT.\nTherefore, while we are excited about the company's growth prospects around its advertising segment and its App Stores potential given its huge installed base, we are wary of the valuation placed by the market on AAPL right now and encourage investors to wait for a major retracement, before considering adding new exposure to AAPL.\nAs a result, werate AAPL at neutralfor now.","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Apple Stock: Is Now A Good Time To Buy Or Sell? Wait For The Dip First To Buy</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nApple Stock: Is Now A Good Time To Buy Or Sell? Wait For The Dip First To Buy\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-09-07 22:53 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453887-apple-stock-good-time-buy-sell>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nApple is facing potential headwinds regarding its App Store take rate, but investors should be reminded that such issues are nothing new for the company.\nEven though iPhone is still the key ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453887-apple-stock-good-time-buy-sell\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"AAPL":"苹果"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453887-apple-stock-good-time-buy-sell","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1139582863","content_text":"Summary\n\nApple is facing potential headwinds regarding its App Store take rate, but investors should be reminded that such issues are nothing new for the company.\nEven though iPhone is still the key revenue and profit driver, investors should watch its fast-growing services segment closely.\nNevertheless, Apple needs to demonstrate that it can grow its services segment quickly moving forward to justify its premium valuation.\nGiven its valuation right now, it's hard for us to justify a Buy rating, but we don't encourage readers to bet against the company as well.\n\nInvestment Thesis\nApple(NASDAQ:AAPL)recently celebrated CEO Tim Cook's tenth year in charge since its visionary founder, the late Steve Jobs, stepped down in Aug 2011. Under Tim Cook's stewardship, the iPhone continues to be a key revenue driver since reinventing the smartphone landscape 15 years ago and helped AAPL reached the pinnacle as the world's most valuable company.\nWhile the media focused their attention on the regulatory concerns regarding its 30% take rate from its App Store, AAPL's investors have largely brushed it aside as they turned their eye to the impending iPhone 13 launch knowing that having to contend with regulators is nothing new, and is largely expected, as they are smart enough to focus on the forest and not the trees.\nIn this article, we help our readers to focus on the big picture of Apple's burgeoning services segment, which we think investors don't give enough credit to CEO Tim Cook for, even as the company navigates high expectations with its iPhone 13 sales, 5G ramp and an expected slowdown in revenue and profit growth moving forward.\nWe will also present our valuation argument for Apple Inc., from the EBIT and EBITDA perspective, as well as our analysis of AAPL stock's price action to help investors decide whether to add exposure to AAPL now.\nApple Stock YTD Performance\nFAANG YTD performance (as of 2 Sep 21).\nAAPL stock's YTD performance has underperformed Invesco QQQ ETF(NASDAQ:QQQ), together with Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), as Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOGL)(NASDAQ:GOOG)and Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)easily outperformed the trio with their fast-growing, highly profitable, and dominant digital advertising duopoly (that we highlighted in a recent The Trade Desk(NASDAQ:TTD)article, appendedhere).\nTheglobal digital advertising marketis expected to continue its stellar expansion as the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.3% from $378B in 2020 to $646B by 2024, while the global smartphone market (by shipment) is only expected to grow by 7.7% YoY in 2021 to 1.38B units, and YoY growth is expected to slow subsequently to 3.8% in 2022 and then to about 2% by 2025 according toIDC forecasts. Therefore we think that the 5G ramp will likely boost sales from Apple's 5G upgrade through 2022 before the going gets tougher moving forward. As a result, AAPL's share price may likely face growth headwinds due to the stock's current valuation, which we will discuss in the subsequent sections.\niPhone is Important, But Apple's Services Segment is Growing Its Clout\nApple total revenue (by FY and LTM) and revenue forecast mean consensus. Data source: S&P Capital IQ\nApple revenue by product (By FY). Data source: Company filings\nWhile consistent, Apple's revenue growth from 2016 to 2020 was certainly not spectacular as it grew by a CAGR of just 6.22%, even though 2021 has been a remarkable year as its LTM revenue reached $347B. Readers should also be able to easily glean that the Street is also not optimistic that Apple would be able to continue its stellar 2021 performance moving forward as revenue is expected to increase from $366B in FY21 to $447B by FY25, which represents a CAGR of just about 5.1% over the next 4 years, that's even slower than its FY16 to the FY20 CAGR.\nAn important point for investors to note is that iPhone's revenue actually fell in FY19 and FY20, and despite that, the company still managed to eke out an increase in revenue in FY20. Notably, Apple's services segment has been growing remarkably to support the company's revenue growth. Its revenue increased by a CAGR of 20.3% from FY18 to FY20. Its revenue also reached $50.2B based on its collective performance from Q1'21 to Q3'21.\nTherefore, while iPhone continues to be a vital segment for the company as it accounted for 54.2% of the first three quarters' revenue, astute investors have been keeping an eye on the company's fast-growing services segment, which they believe will be the key driver of growth for the company moving forward.\nIn fact, we think Roku(NASDAQ:ROKU)might even have found Apple's margins with its hardware segments enviable, as investors in Roku know that the Connected TV (CTV) platform leader uses a low-margin hardware penetration gameplan to attract users onto its platform for the company to leverage their highly effective monetization strategies (we shared this in a recent Roku article, link to the article is appendedhere), that the company was willing to even go into negative margins in Q2 to absorb the costs pressure relating to the semiconductor supply chain issues.\nHowever, Apple operates with a much higher gross margin for its hardware segments, which has been close to 40% over time, which has not only helped to make a tidy profit off its hardware but has also given the company a huge installed base of Apple devices to monetize through its services segment.\nIn our recent article on Digital Turbine(NASDAQ:APPS), we shared that iOS has a global market share of about 26.3%, against an estimated global installed base of 6.2B units in 2021 (link to the article is appendedhere). This means that Apple is expected to have a total iOS installed base of about 1.63B units by the end of this year that the company can leverage, and we think the potential is massive.\nAccording to Apple's filings, its services segment consists of sales \"from the Company’s advertising, AppleCare®, digital content, and other services. Services net sales also include amortization of the deferred value of Maps, Siri, and free iCloud storage and Apple TV+SM services, which are bundled in the sales price of certain products.\"\nTherefore, it's a segment with huge potential. Currently, the most important sub-segment within services is none other than its lucrative Apps store. Even more amazing is that despite iOS having only a 26% share of the global installed base, Apps store revenue has consistently outperformed Google Play revenue. The same trend is expected to continue as iOS consumers were expected to spend $41.5B in H1'21 compared to $23.4B for Google Play consumers from an earlierstudy in Juneby Sensor Tower. Using a 30% take rate as a basis, the Apps Store was expected to generate about $12.45B in commissions, accounting for 38.1% of H1'21 services revenue of $32.7B. Importantly, this is also a highly profitable segment, ascourt documentson Alphabet showed that its Play store posted an operating margin of 62.5% in 2019 (Google doesn't break out its Play store margins).\nApp Store profitability estimates analysis. Data source: S&P Capital IQ, various company filings, Reuters, Alphabet\nIf we consider Apple's overall LTM operating margin of 28.8%, then we are pretty sure App's store margins are a big deal, even though based on its annual run rate of $25B, it is only expected to account for just 6.8% of FY21 consensus revenue estimates. However, if we look at Apple Inc.'s FY21 EBIT estimates of $108.7B (estimated EBIT margin of 29.7%), the App Store is expected to account for 14.4% of Apple's total EBIT estimates for FY21. It's unequivocally a crucial revenue and profit driver for Apple to protect and sustain, especially since the App Store revenue grew 22.1% YoY in H1'21. Moreover, with Apple's iPhone sales doing extremely well in FY21 so far (iPhone's revenue for Q1-Q3 has already exceeded FY19 and FY20 total iPhone revenue), we think the momentum for App Store is only just getting started.\nThe App Store is a Key Beneficiary of Mobile Gaming\nMobile gaming content market worldwide. Data source: Capcom; International Development Group\nMobile gaming is expected to grow consistently over the next few years, from $121.1B in 2020 to $169.7B by 2025, representing a CAGR of about 7%. We highlighted in our recent articles on Roblox(NYSE:RBLX)and Tencent(OTCPK:TCEHY)how mobile gaming's secular growth is not just a COVID-19 phenomenon (link to the articles are appendedhereandhere).\nTherefore, it's clear that the App Store is a key beneficiary of mobile gaming's secular growth, and we can definitely observe in its H1'21 performance as in-game spending increased by 13.5% YoY from $22.9B in H1'20 to $26B in H1'21, which also represented 62.7% of App Store's H1'21 revenue.\nTherefore, we are not surprised that the recent furor over Apple's take rate from the App Store has caused lots of confusion and chatter about whether it will lead to the dismantling of Apple's closely-guarded, highly lucrative revenue stream.\nWe think Apple has certainly recognized the need to placate regulators about its supposed \"monopolistic\" behavior by allowing theso-called reader appsto be exempted from its commissions. Still, it is important to note that this does not affect gaming apps and in-app purchases, thus allowing Apple to continue relying on their most lucrative gaming apps to drive revenue growth.\nDespite that, therecent billby the South Korean parliament to disallow app store operators from charging commissions on in-app purchases should be carefully watched, as this may have ramifications around the world if regulators were to follow the signal from South Korea. Nevertheless, we will like to remind our readers not to overreact to such developments but to keep calm and observe. Apple didn't get to become the world's most valuable company without overcoming its fair share of regulatory issues, and we should certainly expect the management to show similar resilience and fortitude as they had in the past.\nAdvertising is the Trump Card\nWe highlighted previously in our recent article on Amazon where we discussed why advertising is the most underrated segment for the e-commerce behemoth, as it's the company's fastest-growing segment (link to the article is appendedhere).\nWe think likewise for Apple; we encourage investors never to underestimate Apple's ability to monetize its users. We have seen earlier how, despite iOS having just 26% of the global installed base, the App Store revenue easily outsized Google Play's revenue in H1'21. With a global installed base that's 1.6B and growing, there are many monetization opportunities that Apple can certainly leverage.\nFor example, in our Digital Turbine articles (the most recent one ishere), we showed how lucrative the content discovery business for APPS is, even though the company mainly worked with the Android OS. Now, the company has a full-stack ad tech platform for its expanded digital media business. Therefore, we think this is a marvelous opportunity for Apple, as the owner of the iOS ecosystem, to expand on its content discovery offerings for its app developers who want to cut through the clutter of apps to appear in front of consumers, which is a $500M business for Digital Turbine's work on the Android OS. Although it's not a big deal for Apple, it shows various opportunities for monetization that the company can expand into.\nIn addition, Apple has also been able to capitalize on Google's advertising growth by using Google as the default search engine for iOS. Based onBernstein's estimates, Google paid about $10B to Apple for that in FY20, and thus it is an important revenue driver for the services segment, besides the App Store revenue.\nImportantly, Apple's ad revenue from its own App Store is estimated to account for$3B of FY21's revenue, up from a mere $300M in FY17, a 10x growth in 4 years. We don't find the projections unreasonable if readers refer to our Amazon article. The company grew its ad revenue by a CAGR of 74% from 2017 and 2019 and by 52% YoY even during 2020's pandemic year. The advertising momentum that Amazon has experienced from its e-commerce marketplace is truly phenomenal, which generates 90% of its advertising revenue, which was worth $21.45B in FY20, up from just $4.65B in FY17.\nTherefore we think the advertising potential from the App Store ads is likely to be in the early innings of its growth, and we highly encourage investors to watch this space closely. Even though Bernstein's estimates of about $20B (4.5% of FY25 estimated revenue) worth of ad revenue by FY25 may not be a blockbuster number when we compare it to FY25's estimated revenue of $447B, this is likely going be a highly profitable segment that can garner an operating margin in the range of 35% to 40% (equivalent to about $7b to $8B in operating profits) as we demonstrated in our Amazon article. Against an estimated EBIT of $104.9B by FY25, a 7% potential contribution from advertising that is growing is definitely an important diversification from the troubles brewing over its App Store take rate, as well as a potential slowdown in growth on its hardware segments.\nApple Stock Looks Fairly Valued for Now\nEBIT multiples valuation comps set. Data source: S&P Capital IQ\nEBITDA multiples valuation comps set. Data source: S&P Capital IQ\nWe think why investors have often found it challenging to understand the valuation for AAPL is because they often compared it to its smartphone peers such as Samsung(OTC:SSNLF)(KRX:A005930) or Xiaomi(OTCPK:XIACY), which trade at much lower valuation multiples (whether EBIT or EBITDA) as compared to AAPL, especially when AAPL is not expected to be growing as fast, moving forward.\nInvestors should observe that AAPL is trading as if it's a major player in the digital advertising market like its FAANG peers: Alphabet and Facebook. We think for investors to make sense of Apple's valuation, it really depends on how Apple will be able to monetize its huge installed base and grow its advertising revenue rapidly to convince investors that it's deserving of its premium price, even though it remains a highly profitable business, much more than Xiaomi.\nAAPL Street mean target price. Source: Seeking Alpha Premium\nWe decided to give AAPL the benefit of the doubt and valued the company based on its estimated FY22 trading multiples (EBIT: 20.7x, EBITDA: 18.9x) and derived an implied fair value of around $143.9 based on its EBIT and EBITDA multiples at the midpoint of its fair value range. This suggests that the stock has a potential downside of about 6% (not including the margin of safety) from its last closing price of $153.90. Readers who would like to review our valuation models can refer to themhereandhere.\nMeanwhile, based on the Street's mean target price of $164.33, the stock is valued at an FY22 implied EBIT multiple of about 22.1x, which we think looks like a premium valuation that the Street is willing to extend the Cupertino company.\nPrice Action and Trend Analysis\nAAPL stock price action (weekly).\nAAPL EV/Fwd EBIT trend.\nWhile we don't find a preferred entry point on AAPL right now, AAPL stock's long-term uptrend is unambivalent no matter how we see it. In addition, investors can easily glean from its EV/Fwd EBIT trend that the stock has never traded cheaply over the last 5 years with a mean EBIT multiple of about 14.6x, even though the market is willing to value AAPL at a much higher valuation now at 22.97x EBIT.\nTherefore, while we are excited about the company's growth prospects around its advertising segment and its App Stores potential given its huge installed base, we are wary of the valuation placed by the market on AAPL right now and encourage investors to wait for a major retracement, before considering adding new exposure to AAPL.\nAs a result, werate AAPL at neutralfor now.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":240,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":10,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}