Making a seemingly contrarian call, one analyst upgraded Apple to a "buy" on Monday, after being neutral on the tech giant for the past 12 months.
"While we acknowledge weaker data points from the supply chain and softness in China, we believe similar to last year, investors are likely making a mistake in extrapolating the data to eternity," wrote Abhey Lamba, senior technology analyst at Mizuho Securities, in a note to clients. "We were able to make a nonconsensus call last year by looking at the bigger picture and similar analysis this year makes us take a positive stance on the stock. We believe Apple continues to represent a very strong franchise that has potential to keep gaining share."
Though spillover from a stock sell-off in China could stoke concerns for Apple investors, Lamba noted in an interview Monday with CNBC's "Fast Money: Halftime Report" that investors should not get caught up in the short-term negatives.
"What we did was we took a step back and said these quarterly data points are the noise, let's check back and see what's Apple really worth. What is their customer base really worth?" said Lamba. "When we look at that, we get a value of about $140 per share, which we think is a fair value, and we think as these data points clear out, the stock will trend towards that."
Lamba acknowledged that Apple faces some risks given the current economic climate. Slowing revenues at key suppliers, a lukewarm upgrade cycle and serial scares in China have cast a shadow over the stock in the past six months, leaving it down more than 6 percent over the past year.
Apple's highly anticipated new flagship product, the iPhone 7, expected to debut this year, comes on the heels of a difficult business environment for smartphone suppliers worldwide, as the market becomes more saturated and demand reportedly softens.
Still, Lamba said that Apple has a "very loyal customer base" that could potentially outweigh the company's current headwinds.
"On the iPhone demand side, they have a customer base that is not going away to other platforms," said Lamba. "Rather, they're attracting customers from other platforms onto Apple."
— CNBC's Anita Balakrishnan contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Mizuho is a market maker for Apple. Mizuho provides non-securities-related services to Apple.