Apple opened June 30 at a new all-time high, trading at $192 per share with a market cap above $3 trillion. This is not the first time the beloved tech giant, which is up 47% so far for the year, has breached the $3 trillion market cap -- it did so briefly in intra-day trading in January 2022, but was unable to hold onto the valuation.
Faced now with the opportunity of closing above the $3 trillion market cap, something no company has ever done, Wedbush's Dan Ives thinks Apple's ascension is just beginning.
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"We believe this is a $4 trillion market cap by 2025," Ives told CNBC. "At the end of the day, Apple continues to play chess while others are playing checkers."
Ives, noting that a quarter of Apple's install base hasn't upgraded their iPhone in more than four years, said that the company's surging valuation right now marks nothing more than its "middle innings." There's still the AI boost to consider.
"What investors are missing is it's a golden install base. We're talking about 1.2 billion iPhones, two billion IOS devices, and the hall-of-fame tactician Cook has led Apple through all the challenges, from a supply chain to other issues," Ives said. "AI is going to be the next step as they build an AI app store."
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And Apple's expensive Vision Pro headset, according to Ives, will be a major step in the company's coming AI play. Ives thinks the $3,500 price tag will drop to $1,500 by 2025; right now, all Apple needs to do is develop enough use cases so that when the headset becomes affordable, people will hop on board.
"Ultimately, that's the breadcrumbs to what I see them building out an AI app store for Apple," Ives said. "We believe the new bull market in tech has begun. We see tech stocks up another 15% second half of the year."
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