There can never be any sure-shot safe bets in the tech industry. In the dynamic world of technology, today's laggards can suddenly march ahead, leaving the present winners behind. Take the examples of Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) and Apple (AAPL). While dismissed earlier as being the ones who missed the AI train, the tech titans have made a solid comeback, thanks to Gemini 3 and the iPhone 17, respectively.
In fact, Apple is set to ship more phones than Samsung (SMSN.L.EB) in 2025, which is happening for the first time in 14 years. According to Counterpoint Research, Apple's shipments for the year will be 243 million units versus Samsung's count of 235 million units. Further, the firm also revealed that at 24.2% in October, Apple has achieved its highest ever market share.
This has also led to a revival in the Apple share price, as after a sedated start, AAPL stock is now up 12% on a year-to-date (YTD) basis.
So, with momentum by its side, is this the right time to load up on the AAPL stock, or should other mitigating factors be considered before jumping the gun on the $4.1 trillion market cap company? Let's find out.
Apple's Strong Q4
Even when murmurs swirled around its perceived irrelevance, Apple continued to outpace Wall Street expectations consistently. The story remained unchanged for Q4 2025 as well.
For its fiscal Q4 2025, Apple's total net sales came in at $102.5 billion, up 8% from the previous year. While product sales were reported to be $73.2 billion (vs. $70 billion in Q4 2024), sales from the high-margin services segment inched up by 15.1% in the same period to $28.8 billion. Notably, sales of the iPhone, the company's flagship product, increased to $49 billion from $46.2 billion in the year-ago period.
Meanwhile, earnings almost doubled to $1.85 per share from $0.97 per share in the year-ago period, coming in ahead of the consensus estimate of $1.78 per share. Further, Apple has been beating earnings expectations consecutively for more than two years now, reflecting its earnings power.
Coming to cash flows, although they lowered from $118.2 billion in Q4 2024 to $111.5 billion in Q4 2025, having more than a hundred billion dollars in operating cash flows allows Apple to operate from a place of strength. Overall, the company closed the quarter with a cash balance of $35.9 billion, much higher than its short-term debt levels of $20.3 billion.
For the December quarter, analysts are forecasting Apple to report revenues of $132.3 billion and an EPS of $2.53.
iPhone 17: The Trigger That Was Needed
The searing demand for the iPhone 17, especially for the base variants in the critical markets of the U.S. and China, has come as a pleasant surprise for Apple. It was much needed as well, with the company lagging its peers in the “Magnificent Seven” due to weak sales of the previous generation of iPhones, as well as its botched showing on the AI front with Apple Intelligence. Attractive specifications, including the addition of 120-hertz ProMotion and always-on display capabilities to the standard iPhone 17, have enabled Apple to achieve record sales for the latest iPhone lineup.
Now, coming to the contentious topic of AI, a stick that has been used vigorously to beat Apple with. It is not that Apple is doing nothing in terms of AI, as is evidenced by my previous analysis. However, if one looks at it strategically, Apple does not have to be as nimble as its peers in AI, as with an installed active device base of 2.35 billion, Apple can easily partner with any of the leading generative AI platforms and seamlessly integrate AI into its products and services without spending heavily on the associated infrastructure that is required for AI. Moreover, Apple can dictate terms to its partners regarding its avowed policy on privacy while also agreeing to lucrative service agreements with them, as it has done with Google to make it the default search engine on its browser, Safari.
Also, the M5 chip has earned rave reviews as well, with custom silicone grabbing headlines recently. The M5 chip features a next-gen GPU with a “Neural Accelerator” in each core, a 16-core Neural Engine, and much higher unified memory bandwidth, which together dramatically improve AI & ML workloads. Notably, compared to the M4, the M5 shows about 13%-19% better single-core and about 15%-20% better multi-core performance, largely due to higher clock speeds and architecture refinements, while being power-efficient and thermally manageable.
Finally, beyond consumer-facing features, Apple reportedly is also using generative-AI tools internally to help design its chips (i.e., AI-assisted chip architecture work), speeding up design cycles and helping manage complexity as chip designs become more advanced.
Analyst Opinion on AAPL Stock
Thus, analysts have deemed the AAPL stock a “Moderate Buy,” with a mean target price of $285.29. This indicates an upside potential of about 2% from current levels. Out of 40 analysts covering the stock, 22 have a “Strong Buy” rating, two have a “Moderate Buy” rating, 14 have a “Hold” rating, one has a “Moderate Sell” rating, and one has a “Strong Sell” rating.
On the date of publication, Pathikrit Bose did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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