The Street might be eagerly awaiting Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) latest quarterly readout today, but in the meantime, the tech giant has preceded that affair with another happening.
Earlier this week, Apple held its ‘Scary Fast’ event, held at night and something of a nod to Halloween, during which it introduced its next-generation chips. The M3 family includes the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max and is the first lineup of chips to utilize a 3-nm processor in a personal computer. They also enable Dynamic Caching, which means the GPU assigns local memory usage in real-time to enhance efficiency and performance. Additionally, the chips boast new rendering capabilities such as hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray-tracing.
The company also announced the latest iterations of the 14” MacBook Pro, 16” MacBook Pro, and iMac. The updated 24″ iMac featuring the M3 chip marks the first iMac upgrade since April 2021 when Apple introduced the iMac with the M1 chip. Meanwhile, the refreshed 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pro models boasting M3 chips essentially replace the recently released 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pro versions with the M2 chip, which were launched in January 2023. Importantly, the new models come with more appealing price points compared to the initial launch prices of the previous ones.
Keeping a tab on proceedings, Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng wasn’t surprised by what Apple had to offer. But while there weren’t any “drop the mic” moments, the new products leave Apple well-positioned to capture market share as the PC segment rebounds.
“In our view,” said Ng, “the announcements made were largely in-line with press speculation going into the event and, as a result, largely in-line with expectations. That said, we view the new MacBook Pros and iMac as a positive development given that prior to press speculation around the announced event, there were limited expectations for new Macs going into holiday 2023. AAPL’s refreshed Mac portfolio positions it well to capitalize on the industry PC recovery following declining shipments in the last 2 years (C2022-23) due to a normalization of the outsized demand in C2021.”
All told, Ng rates Apple shares a Buy along with a $213 price target, implying the shares will surge 20% over the coming months. (Watch Ng’s track record)
Overall, AAPL stock garners a Moderate Buy consensus rating, supported by a breakdown of 22 Buy recommendations and 9 Holds. Looking ahead in the coming months, analysts anticipate potential returns of 19%, with the average price target resting at $203.35. (See Apple stock forecast)
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
