[This was originally posted on 9/10. Please see 10/19 update details below. As of today's (10/19) market close of $219.31, AAPL is trading at a 15.0x multiple on my next-twelve-months EPS estimate (13.9x when excluding next-12-months net cash and dividend).]
Posting a month early and before Wednesday's event, as promised, in order to test my assumptions and intuition into this cycle, as I did last year as well with satisfying results.
The most uncertain item for me this time is iPhone pricing. I'm modeling a modest reduction from last year prices. Hope Apple can achieve this, as it would allow for a more sustainable boost to unit growth over mid single digits and easily beating the record 231.5m units sold in 2015.
The other sources of uncertainty are the Mac and iPad product lines. I'm assuming a significant update (finally) to both lines, announced and available for purchase this week. My Mac projections may be optimistic but the effect on total revenue and earnings of any mistake on my part will be limited.
I expect a strong Apple Watch Series 4 update, helping with continued very strong Other Products revenue growth.
Finally, I've slightly pared back my buyback intensity estimates, and accelerated the gradual valuation expansion mentioned last quarter from 0.1 to 0.25 quarterly increases in the EPS multiple, which now goes to 15x by 2022. Of course, this more realistic valuation reduces the number of shares Apple will be able to retire, resulting in a moderation of FY19 EPS growth from 30% to 23%. However, this is still well above Wall Street analysts, who continue to underestimate the effect of buybacks given their 15% EPS growth estimates when compared to their 5% revenue growth for next year (I'm at 6% revenue growth).
Detailed estimates:
3mo ending Sep18 Rev$B GM% $EPS ---------------- ----- ---- ---- Analysts consens 61.2 - 2.76 Apple guide low 60.0 38.0 2.67* Apple guide high 62.0 38.5 2.84* My estimates 62.0 38.4 2.83 (4.83b shares)
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