The launch of tech giant Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) latest devices is rapidly approaching, but Apple was down slightly in Thursday afternoon’s trading. Why is not immediately clear; in fact, the drop seems somewhat counter-intuitive after new word emerged from Citi, backing Apple’s forward progression.
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Citi, via analyst Atif Malik, maintained its Buy rating on Apple stock and also made it clear it looked for big things to come. Malik noted that Apple, thanks to its upcoming iPhone launch, would drive its performance beyond that of Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ:SWKS). Given that Skyworks sees as much as 60% of its revenue from Apple, based on results from a few different research firms, the success of one is likely to help spur the success of the other.
Apple is already gearing up for the new release, with Apple projected to build at least 85 million new iPhones. That’s about what was made for the last launch, though reports suggest that supply chain issues may still, somehow, intervene to hamper construction numbers here. There’s even been a leak ahead of the new iPhone launches; the Apple A17 chip has some new technical details attached to it that weren’t there previously. The A17 will involve, at last report, both six CPU cores and six GPU cores, running at 3.7 GHz.
Analysts are still holding their support behind Apple. Apple stock is considered a Moderate Buy by analyst consensus, supported by 22 Buy ratings and eight Holds. Further, Apple stock offers a healthy 19.06% upside potential thanks to an average price target of $208.13.
