JPMorgan Likes This Long-Term Positive Catalyst For Apple

Apple Inc. AAPL's App Store reported over $1.1 billion in record-breaking sales over the holiday season. January 1 was the biggest day in App Store history at $144 million.

The App Store has brought in nearly $40 billion for developers since 2008, with over one-third generated in the last year alone, according to Apple's press release.

"The App Store had a holiday season for the record books. We are excited that our customers downloaded and enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over $20 billion on the App Store last year alone," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "We're grateful to all the developers who have created the most innovative and exciting apps in the world for our customers. We can't wait for what's to come in 2016."

JPMorgan's Rod Hall commented on the update Thursday morning. The firm calculated Apple generated about $6.4 billion in sales from its share of App revenue in 2015, up 47 percent year-over-year.

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"Appsumers continue to be highly engaged in the App Store ecosystem which is a long term positive for the company's future product," Hall wrote. "We note that this is similar to the App Store announcement last January with commentary on Apple Pay replaced with an Apple TV app update."

The top app in the store over the holiday was Fitbit Inc FIT. Digital Trends noted that Fitbit was "the most downloaded health and fitness iOS app every day in December, according to data from mobile analytics firm App Annie cited by Quartz. Christmas Day was the first time its app was the top free Apple Store app."

JPMorgan has an Overweight rating on Apple's stock, which has been under heavy selling pressure this week. Since opening the new year just a few cents under $107, shares traded at $98.62 mid-day Thursday. This week is the first time Apple has traded under $100 since August 2015.

A big part of the sell-off can be attributed to potential weakness in iPhone production.