Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has hit another all time high today, and as of writing this piece is sitting at just over $350 per share. That is a quite meteoric rise in share value from a little over $100 a few short years ago.
It is worth noting that ARM (the UK company that is behind the CPUs in virtually all mobile devices today – and certainly all of Apple’s) are also at an all time high of over £6.00 per share. To give you some perspective they were worth around £2 a share a little over 12 months ago.
Much of Apple’s recent increase in share price is attributed to its world wide dominance in mobile devices and the media services serving them. Even though its core computer business is still very important to the company – and also extremely healthy.
News about a second leave of absence for CEO Steve Jobs, announced recently, probably put the breaks on Apple’s share price rise, which was also very close to $350 a few weeks ago. Even at $350 Apple is worth more in investments, cash reserves and revenue than that price per share suggests. And the company is still growing – rapidly.
A bumper Q1 earnings report, and the massive consumer response to their flagship iPhone 4 hitting Verizon has caused a resurgence in APPL’s share price; and caused a few market watchers to enthusiastically predict AAPL hitting $450 or more this year. Something we’ve been predicting for a while, never wavering, despite the ups and downs in opinions of the “experts” in the financial markets.
Interestingly, and perhaps predictably, it is the massive growth in the tablet sector which has finally prompted many market watchers to bump up Apple’s value still further from previous predictions. Interesting because we keep hearing about all the “iPad Killers” just around the corner… Perhaps they’ve all finally realized that Apple is still a few years ahead of the nearest competition. Again, something we’ve been saying repeatedly here for quite some time.
The iPad, according to one analyst, accounts for $43 of Apple’s overall share price. This is incredible for a device that no-one had seen a little over a year ago. And this, and the iPad’s potential is the primary reason they give for upping APPL’s predicted future value.
Predictions for iPhone sales in 2011 are for 75 million units, with around 100 million in 2012. And the iPad is estimated to sell over 30 million units this year.
It’s still not too late to put some money in Apple…
Are you an Apple investor? Happy with your choice? Let us know in the comments…