Shares of tech giant Apple (AAPL) finished in the green today after Goldman Sachs reported that foreign-branded smartphone shipments to China rose by 9% in February compared to last year. This means that there could be a bounce-back in iPhone demand. While Apple’s market share in China dipped from 16% to 13% in February, it was still the strongest monthly growth since June 2024. As a result, Goldman, led by 4.5-star analyst Mike Ng, kept its Buy rating on Apple and held its 12-month price target at $294.
Apple also released new AI features in eight more languages through its latest iOS, iPadOS, and macOS updates. These features are now available in regions like Europe and Asia and include countries like Japan, France, and Brazil. As a result, iPhone users in the EU and Vision Pro users can use Apple Intelligence tools for writing help, image generation, and personalized emoji creation for the first time.
Meanwhile, TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple’s rumored $1 billion order for Nvidia’s (NVDA) new GB300 AI chips won’t help much in the short term, especially since Meta (META) plans to buy 70 times more GPUs than Apple. Kuo also noted that Apple might not receive the chips until late 2026, so the deal won’t give it a real advantage in AI this year or in the next.
Is Apple a Buy or Sell Right Now?
Overall, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on AAPL stock based on 17 Buys, 11 Holds, and four Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average AAPL price target of $249.88 per share implies 13.2% upside potential.
