AAPL

At least two more of my recent prophecies on growth stocks which I posted in September already came true. Just two weeks after touching its next symbolic round figure of $600 by Meta, Netflix also soared by double-digit percentage from beneath $700 to above $765 last Friday, supported much by solid earnings and 5 million new subscribers. Meanwhile, Tesla stopped at $265 to deviate only $10 from my predicted $210 to $255 price range for the rest of 2024 and then plunged below $220 to waste its bullish momentum of the previous two months. Well, I'll come back to the issue of Tesla prospects a few days later. And now I really feel it's high time to base my current expectations on what company may become the next record breaker of its all-time highs among big techs. I personally believe it could be Apple stocks, and here's why.

In fact, Apple briefly touched its record high around $237.50 to finish last week at $235.00, which is historically the best ever closing price for the company. The fresh driver behind the move was that sales of iPhones 16 in China just stepped over 20% compared to last year’s model dynamics in the first three weeks of distribution. Considering that investors' doubts about further successful promotion of new iPhones in the Asian market were the main motivation for slowing the growth of Apple stocks since mid-summer, that door to heaven is now wide open.

I'll give you a few details. According to Counterpoint Research, data provided to Bloomberg News, consumers' demand also shifted toward expensive models. The high-end Pro and Pro Max versions were sold 44% better vs equivalent lineups from 2023. Worries on the iPhone 16 popularity were particularly because Apple lacked a local partner in China to support its newest AI features in the region. The company needed to cooperate with large domestic partners like Baidu due to governmental restrictions when integrating AI technology options. Besides, Apple made its Apple Intelligence innovations for iPhone 16 available only in some countries, as the whole process of the initial rollout was affected by production issues. Competition from Huawei Technologies with its latest Mate 60 series, which is still selling well, could worsen the market conditions for Apple. Both Xiaomi and Oppo shared plans of refreshing their product lines soon, before the end of 2024. Another local manufacturer Vivo launched its X200 Pro flagship model. Yet, recent evidence suggests that the smooth production ramp-up of the iPhones and reasonable pricing strategy boosted substantial growth of demand by this very critical audience from China.

But that's not all for Apple's advantages at the moment. Last week, the iPhone maker additionally gave birth to its new iPad mini with A17 Pro chip and expanded Pencil Pro compatibility to support squeeze sensing and haptic feedback plus "fresh colour options", starting at $499 only for the Wi-Fi model, and also packed with some neural engine meaning AI capabilities like writing tools, an improved Siri assistance. The iPad mini doubled the storage volume of the previous generation at 128 GB. Enhanced capacity for language and image generation, streamline tasks while maintaining privacy, improved photo editing, augmented reality applications and gaming "with hardware-accelerated ray tracing", smart script option for handwriting in notes are reportedly all there. Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C) are sold separately for $129 and $79, respectively, yet the total price of using this new device does not look excessive. It seems that the new iPad mini will be more in demand than its predecessors, for which the public interest has been fading which led to lower iPad sales in 2023.

For me, the combination with growing sales of the iPhone 16, this may provide Apple with better financial indicators already in the Christmas quarter, keeping the positive momentum until the spring of 2025. In turn, this may provide Apple shareholders with additional profits. Technically, another $25 of price gains, with $260 as a near-term target, represents a baseline scenario. By the way, Technology Select Sector exchange-traded fund, governed by State Street Global Advisors, which is a trademark of Standard and Poor's Financial Services in New York, increased its stake in Apple from 5% in early September to nearly 15%. Don't you think they feel something as well?