저자: DanIves · 외국인
요약 보기
애플은 2024년 성장 국면에 진입하며 1년 내 시총 4조 달러 도달 가능, 베어 논리는 밸류에이션·중국 리스크 중심의 소설에 가깝다는 낙관론. 특허 분쟁(마시모 관련 워치 판매 차질)은 매출 영향 1% 미만으로 제한적이라고 평가. 애플 설치 기반(2.5억 대 아이폰 업그레이드 대기)과 서비스 두 자릿수 성장, 2024 매출 추정 3970억 달러를 근거로 제시. 중국 리스크는 존재하지만 1억 대 아이폰 보유 기반과 업그레이드 수요로 상쇄된다고 봄. 화웨이는 아이폰12 수준으로 평가. 차기 제품 사이클: 아이폰16, AI 앱스토어(서비스 증분), 비전프로 등 추가 성장 동력 언급. AI 투자: 클라우드 지출 100달러당 AI 지출 35~40달러 증가 추정. MS·아마존·구글 수혜, 엔비디아는 1995년 인터넷 초기 같은 국면으로 진단. 2024년 기술주 강세장 지속 전망, 2025년까지 상승 가능성 언급. EV 시장: 디트로이트 완성차(GM·포드)는 전기차 목표 축소, 테슬라는 중국 판매 호조와 가격 인하 전략으로 시장 지배력 강화. 연말 분기 중국 기록 전망, 내년 수요 가속 기대. EV 침투율은 40%가 아닌 25~30% 수준으로 조정 가능성. 드론 시장: 아마존·월마트 등 참여하나 과열된 부분과 실질 성장 구분 필요.
다듬은 글
this is not an accidental infringement...
*(번역 및 다듬기: 원문이 영어 자막이므로 영어 원문을 그대로 다듬어 제공합니다.)*
this is not an accidental infringement this is a deliberate taking of our intellectual property. Apple's internal documents that we saw in court showed that they knew their product wasn't good enough to be used medically. There needs to be an honest dialogue. There needs to be an apology. These guys have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and instead of being embarrassed and doing the right thing, they're blaming everybody. They're fighting everybody.
All right, that was Joe Kiani, CEO of Masimo. It's the company at the center of Apple's watch band after the International Trade Commission found Apple infringed on patents from Masimo. The U.S.R. now saying two patents were infringed, including the one from that company. So, great setup to see what Dan Ives, who definitely likes Apple, has to say. He's senior equity analyst at Wedbush, joining Katie Manis and myself here in studio. Great to have you here. Happy holidays.
You too. Great to be here. Is it going to be a happy year for Apple? It feels like it's going to get off to a rough start.
I think it's time to get out the popcorn, because in my opinion this is the next stage of the growth phase in Cupertino. And look, if you look at what happened, how do you factor in this kind of stuff? I can't buy a watch, I need a new watch and I can't buy it right now. Look, we're talking less than 1% of disruption from the Apple Watch in terms of the actual quarter. And it just speaks to the fact they're going to have patent issues like this in healthcare. But there's a renaissance of growth on iPhone units, services up double digits. That's why I think a lot of the bears right now are deep in those caves in hibernation mode. I think a year from now we have a $4 trillion market cap on Apple.
You say the bears have a great fictional story. Okay, a Netflix fictional story. We all want to be in it. I've got to hand it to you, this shirt just screams full of confidence, full of vigor. But you look at the China story. So make sense of this for us. How do you get to $4 trillion when you still have the government pushing back against Apple products? It was a headline just in December. Is that a myth or is that a headwind?
I think it's a headwind. Ultimately, my view on China is that I'm not saying it's roses and champagne in Beijing with Apple, but we are seeing growth. That's something we've seen come out of Asia checks even over the last week. You have 100 million iPhones in China in the window of an upgrade opportunity. As those upgrade... and look, for Huawei, it's a good phone, but realistically, from an actual functionality perspective, it's an iPhone 12. So I do think it's a headwind they have to contend with, but it is the heart and lungs of the Apple story. That's why a lot of the bears, at $500 billion, a trillion, a trillion and a half, two trillion... it's all about China. Now it's all three trillion. I think it's going to be fun. It's always about that big bad wolf, the China story, and the actuality is China's actually been fuel in the engine.
Well, let's talk about what the bears are saying right now, because they're saying that in terms of the product lineup, Apple really hasn't had a hit since AirPods, and that was all the way back in 2016. So you talk about this new growth, but from the product lineup, where is that going to come from?
Well, first off, the installed base is unparalleled. It's the best installed base in the world. Just from an installed base perspective, you have 250 million iPhones in a window of an upgrade opportunity. I think that's why iPhone 15 so far, Christmas came early, a strong holiday season. But for 2024, and Gene has talked about this as well, I believe you're going to have not just new phones coming out, like an iPhone 16. We believe you're going to have the iPhone App Store, which is going to be an AI App Store focused on AI apps. That's going to be incremental for services, and I think that's very important. You combine it with Vision Pro, and we believe more and more products are coming out. They flex the muscles.
Dan, is there a bear story though on Apple? I mean, if Tim Cook was here, and I know this is how we feel, we are an Apple family. When somebody goes to buy something, like, no, sorry, you can't do that, it's got to be an Apple product, because that's been our infrastructure, that's our network. No green text bubbles. Okay, none of that. Exactly. Although there's an app that I think fully fools people. But that installed base, I'm looking at the 2024 revenue estimate of $397 billion. Every time the Apple numbers cross, they're off the charts. Even if the growth isn't significant, there's still that installed base that's enough to keep a lot of people in.
And if Cook was here, would he be focused on... and is Cook here? Just like... am I an incarnation of Tim Cook? This is the hologram. I am Cook hologram. It's an AI generator. Good morning.
But is there a bear story? Look, realistically, it's about valuation. If you look at valuation, you look at the cash flow generation of Apple that we're going to see over the coming years, that the margins are expanding. The bear story is... look, a lot of the bears just look at their spreadsheets, and in their towers, saying this isn't expensive. So you don't have a bear story for Apple at all, because to me the bear story is valuation, it's China. And at that point, it's a headwind, but it's more of a fictional Netflix story than reality. That's going to hurt them, and then it's just more competition. But it also comes down to valuation, and that's why this year I think the bears focus so much on valuation instead of the actual underlying growth story that's happening, not just in AI, but we believe it's the start of a new tech bull market.
I mean, and this is your thesis for next year, which is about... 2023 was a year in which every time we saw an AI story evolve, Microsoft... wait, we were talking about AI this year just a little. AI and... if you didn't have a... Yeah, I know, I've got... so tempted by a Zenith rather than the treadmill. But on a slightly more serious note, cloud and AI have been the dominant forces, as well as balance sheets, in tech. I put those three together, and let's put Apple aside for a moment. Cloud and AI, how do I disaggregate who's going to perform well in this? What's going to make a cloud-ish grade and an AI-ish grade stock?
Yeah, and I think you hit on what's really a key point. If you look at what's happened with Microsoft, Amazon, Google at the top of that mountain from a cloud perspective, now this is more monetization for the hyperscale players, for Microsoft, for Amazon, for Google. We believe for every $100 of cloud spend over the last four or five years, there's $35 to $40 of incremental AI spend. That's what I'd say when you look at Microsoft, you look at Google. This is going to be just a new frontier of growth. And then, of course, you have the godfather of AI, Jensen Huang at Nvidia. This is really just starting what we view as a 1995 moment. The godfather of AI, top-performing stock in the S&P 500. It's the biggest tech transformation we haven't seen since 1995, the start of the internet. We believe this is actually the beginning of the next phase of this bull market.
I just want to know, are there a million AI ETFs that have all of a sudden come on? You watch that market.
There were a few dozen that were launched way before we started talking about AI, around this time last year. But I do want to switch gears here and talk about EV demand, because this has been one of the stories that's really emerged. It just feels like all of these automakers really miscalculated how much demand there would be for EVs, and now you're seeing those production targets get cut. How does that factor into how you're thinking about Tesla? Is that a bear case for Tesla, or does Tesla just command more of a maybe shrinking pie?
Yeah, I think that's a great point. Look, right now it's Tesla's world, everyone else paying rent when it comes to electric vehicles. I think they're doubling down. You look at what's happened: Detroit, GM, Ford actually peeling back a little from electric vehicles. Some of the foreign automakers, demand's definitely softened, and price wars have come through, but a lot of those storms have now passed. For Tesla specifically, unit volume looks strong in China. I think this is going to be a record quarter for China in terms of Q4. You go into next year, I think demand actually starts to accelerate a bit relative to where people thought. For the overall industry, it's still a massive transformation, but now you're starting to maybe peel back a bit in terms of, okay, this is not going to be 40% penetration, maybe it's 25 to 30%.
Dan, 30 seconds. China is the rallying cry of the bears when it comes to Apple, so too when it comes to Tesla. You think about all those Chinese EV makers. How does Tesla compete overseas?
They've done it. I mean, I think a lot of the price war... look, this was a poker move for the ages by Musk: cut prices, focus on units. That's why right now this has been flexing the muscles in Beijing, not just for Tesla, but of course for Apple, despite bear noise.
Before we started, we showed a piece on drones. Just real quick, 25 seconds: is there a drone play for you?
I mean, all of the companies... Amazon's in it, Walmart's in it, everybody's in it, and there are individual startups. Yeah, look, I think that's past... I remember being at CES years ago. Dr. F... yeah. I think that's why you have to separate hype from the real. There are parts of that market that are growth, but you look at AI. This is the Super Bowl in terms of the tech market. We're going to have a bull tech market in 2025 too. I think this bull tech market goes, we leave for another two years. That's why right now it's getting the popcorn out.
Wow, that's a lot of popcorn. All right, always fun to talk with you. Great, thanks for having me. So appreciate you coming in the studio. Happy New Year. Dan Ives, of course, of Wedbush. Check out his research, and of course his calls on things like Apple and the tech market overall.
Comments 0