The Apple Watch & Apple Car: What 2 Of Wall Street's Best Are Saying

A lot of buzz has been circulating about Apple Inc. AAPL newest product, the Apple Watch, poised to hit stores this coming April. In light of this, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry weighed in on Apple on February 23, maintaining a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of $165.

After speaking to roughly 500 Apple developers and attending six Apple Watch-Kit hackathons, the analyst believes that “by April 10th, Apple may have about 100,000 Apple Watch applications in the AppStore.” With that said, Chowdhry noted the company’s “Winning Recipe” of “MORE DEVELOPERS = MORE APPLICATIONS = MORE DEVICES SOLD.” He does not believe the current price of $350 will be a concern. In comparative terms, if a user has 100 apps on his/her Apple Watch, “the consumer is getting 100 devices for $350 .i.e. $3.50 per device.”

Chowdhry compared the Apple Watch to Google Wear, noting “Every aspect of Apple Watch is extremely well thought-off and seamlessly integrated – right from Software development tools, to AppStore, to the Design of the Apple Watch itself. Google Android Wear seems quite disconnected and haphazard in implementation.”

Trip Chowdhry has rated Apple 15 times since May 2013, earning a 100 percent success rate recommending the stock and a +43.4 percent average return per recommendation. Overall, Chowdhry has a 72 percent success rate recommending stocks and a +29.3 percent average return per recommendation.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White weighed in on Apple a few days earlier on February 20, maintaining a Buy rating on the stock and a $160 price target. White’s rating was driven by news that Apple is planning to develop and build an electric vehicle as soon as 2020. He noted, ““We believe the personal robot category offers great potential over the next decade and fits well with Apple’s skill set. In our view, this week’s media reports of Apple’s potential in the auto market speaks to continued innovation at Apple.”

The analyst added, “In our view, as more “things” become computers, we believe Apple is very well positioned to leverage its heritage in the industry developing hardware and software innovations together across a vast digital ecosystem, creating easy-to-use, aesthetically pleasing products. Given the growing enthusiasm around personal robots at International CES last month, we believe Apple has an opportunity to leverage its heritage in the computer market, technology innovation in mobile devices and reputation for making user-friendly solutions to develop personal robots for the home.”

Brian White has rated Apple 102 times since October 2010, earning an 83 percent success rate recommending the company and a +32.7 percent average return per recommendation. Overall, White has a 75 percent success rate recommending stocks and a +21.3 percent average return per recommendation.

On average, the top analyst consensus for Apple on TipRanks is Moderate Buy.