After Apple shares hit their highest level in more than a year, some market strategists say the stock still has more room to run.
Dwindling hardware sales and the failure of new products like the wireless AirPod earbuds to spur sales left many worried that Apple's dominance was coming to an end. Even sales of the flagship Apple iPhone, which celebrated its 10th anniversary on Monday, plummeted in the past year, with a report in the first days of January revealing that poor iPhone 7 sales caused Apple to cut its production of those phones by 10 percent.
But 55 Capital market strategist Max Wolff predicts that the company will still be the "world's leading luxury brand for at least another 18 months," and that it is still a "fairly valued" stock for investors.
"This is still a cash machine, this is still the world's most successful luxury brand, perhaps one of the most recognized brands in the world," Wolff said Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "We still think it's less valued than many of its inferior peers [and] it's still a good place to be."
One bright spot for Apple has been in what Erin Gibbs, chief investment officer at S&P Global, refers to as Apple's "services industry." This includes mobile apps, which hit a record $240 million in sales on Jan. 1, a number that leads Gibbs to believe that Apple is still a growing company.
"So yes, people haven't been as thrilled with some of the hardware and the physical products, but we see it transition and we still see decent growth," she said. "We still like Apple here."
Apple's stock, which hit a 52-week high on Monday, has rocketed more than 22 percent from last year, and the tech company was one of the key drivers leading the Nasdaq to new all-time highs last week.
On the whole, Wall Street is bullish on the stock, which was at $119.10 in premarket trading Tuesday. The average analyst price target is $133, according to FactSet.
