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Key Takeaways
- Apple just announced several new products, including laptops and iPads, based on a new chip. That could help fire up buying during the holiday season.
- But investors may be looking for more signals from the company that they should start buying into the company’s stock again.
People counting how many devices Apple is likely to sell this year are likely focused on the latest iPhones. But the company has plenty of other new devices to sell you—and investors may be looking past the latest unboxings.
Apple (AAPL) this week announced its latest stuff: an updated Vision Pro headset, which starts around $3,500; a 14-inch MacBook Pro laptop, which starts around $1,500; and new iPad Pro models, which start around $900. They’re platforms for a new chip, called the M5, which the company said is “optimized for AI.”
The devices, timed for sale during the holiday season, round out a lineup that was updated by the arrival of the newest iPhones, among other things, last month.
Why This Matters to Apple Investors
Phones are still big business at Apple, and the tech giant has launched several new ones, but it’s also just announced a handful of other new products based on a new chip. All of them could help give holiday season sales a boost. But investors may be looking for more before they decide whether to get the stock moving upward again.
Phones still make up the biggest chunk of the company’s revenue—they accounted for more than half in the first nine months of the current fiscal year—but even the smallest segment, iPads, represented nearly 7%. (Fiscal fourth-quarter numbers are due at the end of this month.)
The products, meanwhile, are platforms for the company to sell services, which made up about a quarter of Apple’s nine-month sales.
The new products are likely to land under plenty of trees this holiday season, but investors are trying to work through issues that go beyond gift-getters’ preferred models and color choices. Renewed trade tensions with China have raised questions about possible tariff impacts; the wait for Apple’s latest AI services to land has worried some investors. At a more granular level, Jefferies analysts recently wondered whether the mix of new iPhone sales has so far tilted toward less-profitable models.
The stock is down 1% this year through Thursday’s close, one of only two tickers in the Magnificent 7 group of big tech shares not to have gained—and the worst performer over the past 12 months. (The benchmark S&P 500 is up about 13%.) It’s still a giant, with a market cap recently at $3.67 trillion.
Wall Street analysts, however don’t expect much upside, with their mean price target as tracked by Visible Alpha currently just 2% above where the stock ended yesterday.
