Sales, outlook for iPhone dial up new record high for Apple shares
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple shares reached a record-high closing price yesterday, bolstered by sales of the iPhone 7 and investor optimism about prospects for the company’s iPhone 8.
The tech giant’s shares closed yesterday at $133.29, a gain of $1.17, or 0.9 percent. The surge has stabilized Apple’s lofty perch as the world’s most valuable company.
The previous recordhigh closing price for the company was $132.54, set in May 2015.
The march into record territory banished a steep decline over a one-year period that saw Apple shares tumble at one point to just above $90.
Earlier this month, Apple reported that it sold 78.3 million iPhones, which produced $54.38 billion in revenue, during the three months that ended Dec. 31.
Revenue from iPhone sales rose 5 percent during the October-throughDecember holiday shopping period, compared with a year earlier.
Sales of the iPhone also accounted for a larger share of total revenue. During the quarter, iPhone sales generated 69.4 percent of Apple’s revenue. That was up from 68.1 percent during the final three months of 2015, the company reported.
From the May 2015 apex to the trough in May 2016, the company’s stock plunged 31.8 percent.
Since the lows of last spring, however, Apple shares have zoomed about 48 percent higher. So far in 2017, the company’s stock has jumped 15.1 percent.
Some analysts’ reports, including two issued yesterday, also have helped to boost the shares.
“We are increasingly confident in the outlook for Apple’s iPhone 8 cycle in the second half of the year, and as a result are raising both our forecasts and our target price,” Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski wrote in a research report yesterday.