Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, ETR:APC) will be the first company to hit a $4 trillion market capitalization as the rollout of its AI offering Apple Intelligence will kick off a “supercycle” for the iPhone maker, analysts at Wedbush believe.
Some Apple Intelligence features will be released on Monday with the drop of the iOS 18.1 update at 10 am Pacific Time, starting Apple’s phased rollout.
18.1 will include writing tools, nature language photo search, Siri enhancements, and other features for Apple users that have supported devices, the analysts noted.
“This is the beginning of the consumer AI Revolution going through the doors of [Apple headquarters] Cupertino and will kick off a true supercycle for Apple starting with iPhone 16,” they wrote in a note to clients.
“We maintain our ‘Outperform’ and $300 price target and project in 2025 Apple will be the first company to hit $4 trillion market cap followed by Nvidia joining this club.”
Apple shares traded hands at about $223 on Friday, giving it an approximately $3.55 trillion market capitalization.
Analysts believe many “Apple naysayers” have miscalculated important dynamics for Apple, including its installed base of 2 billion iOS devices and 1.5 billion iPhones with about 300 million iPhones in the window of an upgrade opportunity and services revenue valued at $2 trillion which is increasing monetization of its customer base.
They believe Apple could sell more than 240 million iPhone units in fiscal 2025 as an AI-driven upgrade cycle takes hold, marking Apple’s highest iPhone unit sales year in the company’s history.
Wedbush analysts also highlighted that consumer AI will go through Apple’s ecosystem, with more than 20% of the global population interacting with AI through an Apple device in the next few years.
They noted that they expect the rollout of iOS 18.2 by the holiday season.
“18.2 is a much more important AI release as this update will include Genmoji, ChatGPT integration in Siri, Visual Intelligence, image playground, and other AI features,” analysts wrote.
“Our view is Apple's AI rollout over the next few months kick-starts a new era for Cupertino as ultimately hundreds of AI-driven apps get built by developers on top of the building blocks of Apple Intelligence.”