JPMorgan Ups Apple Target To $290 On 'Underappreciated' Advertising Opportunity

JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee raised his price target for Apple to $290 from $280 and reiterates an Overweight rating on the shares.

Following the stock's strong run, investor attention is increasingly focusing on identifying new avenues of Services revenue growth beyond the current ventures, such as Apple Music, Apple Pay, Apple Arcade, and its latest, Apple TV+, "which are still very much in early innings," Chatterjee tells investors in a research note. However, he believes "hidden in plain sight and underappreciated by most" is Apple's advertising opportunity.

The analyst highlights the "secular migration" of advertising dollars to mobile platforms and Apple's large installed base of close to 1B iPhone users. Chatterjee estimates that if Apple were willing to accelerate monetization of advertising through an expansion of its current efforts with Apple Search Ads as well as adopting new strategies around Apple TV, it could expand advertising revenues 33% per annum to $11B in fiscal 2020 from an estimated ~$2B currently. Piper Jaffray also raised its price target on Apple to $290.