Oppenheimer Raise AAPL Price Target to $130, Maintains Outperform

In a note this morning, Oppenheimer is raising their price target on Apple Computer AAPL from $115 to $130 and maintaining their Outperform rating. The Key Points from the Research note: ■ Ecosystem: iPhone and iPad (to a lesser extent, Macbook) have matured and are able to cover the full range of user preference regarding size, power, portability, and feature sets. And with expected Spring launch of a watch, Apple has covered the past, present, and future of our needs for consumer-level human-machine interaction. ■ User Experience: Apple not only progressed to enable a more consistent user experience across its platforms (OS X and iOS), it is forming external partnerships to transfer an "Apple-like" user experience to other verticals (think Apple Pay in retail). We believe these partnerships have a far-reaching impact on Apple's ability to sustain its own devices sales. ■ Weaker Competition: We believe in the current product cycle, competitors are unlikely to provide compelling matching features to threaten Apple's major product categories. ■ Model Adjustments: We introduce our FY16 revenues/EPS of $229B/$8.58. Our FY15 revenues/EPS are raised from $208.7B/$7.36 to $220B/$7.80 based on higher iPhone shipment and ASP assumptions. Our new PT of $130 (from $115) is based on 14x FY15 EPS of $7.80 plus $21 per share net cash Oppenheimer reiterate the Outperform rating on Apple for its renewed ecosystem, its significant advantage over any other device platforms, and near term market share gain opportunities. Shares of AAPL are fractionally higher in pre-market trade at 114.06, implying roughly 10.5 percent upside to the $130 price target.