UPDATE: Oppenheimer Upgrades Apple Inc. Shares Before Icahn Letter

On Thursday, analysts at Oppenheimer Equity Research upgraded shares of Apple Inc. AAPL from Market Perform to Outperform with a $115 price target; analysts also raised estimates.

Within the note Andrew Uerkwitz stated, “we expect the iPhone 6/6 Plus to be, by far and away, the most successful iphone launch to date with excellent sales prospects well into 2015.”

Analysts feel that the larger displays on the new iphones will draw a much larger consumer appeal and will grow Apple’s market share. Moreover, Apple is improving the company’s ecosystem that will likely increase user “stickiness” such as: Apple Pay, HealthKit and Health App, the integration of OS X and iOS, Homekit.

Uerkwitz modified Apple estimates:

Raised Fiscal fourth quarter 2014 and fiscal year 2015 revenues/GAAP-EPS above Street consensus. “Our more bullish outlook FY15 revenues is mainly attributed to
higher than consensus iPhone revenues ($121.7B vs. Street's $114.1B)” Uerkwitz notes.

The $115 price target is based on 12.5x FY15 EPS of $7.31 plus $23 of net cash per share.

In conclusion, Uerkwitz noted, “bottom line: we expect the stronger-than-ever iPhone sales to enable Apple to deliver "beat-and-raise" quarters into CY1H2015.

Shares of Apple Inc recently traded at $101.45 up 0.65 percent Thursday morning.