CNBC's Jim Cramer on Friday avowed his longstanding position on Apple, telling investors the stock will hold its value because of the company's steadfast customer base.
Cramer said many on Wall Street are too focused on recent earnings data points instead of the company's long-term potential and its prominent role in consumer culture.
"They look at how Apple seems static with just incremental growth," Cramer said of analysts. "I look at it as an ecosystem of two billion active devices, all of which are candidates to upgrade to the latest and greatest models for all of the company's offerings."
Apple's Thursday report beat analysts' expectations for sales and earnings per share, but also saw the company's overall sales fall for the fourth quarter in a row. Investors also worried about Apple's sales in China, which were essentially flat year-over-year, as well as a decline in sales of Macs and iPads.
Cramer said he's more focused on Apple's growth in other large international markets such as India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. He said any new Apple buyer can be viewed as a "lifetime customer," likely to purchase more in the future from Apple's large range of products. Cramer also said he thinks Apple's strong service revenue makes up for its weakness in hardware.
"Until these analysts understand that there are eight billion people in this world and every one of them may end up being an Apple customer, one way or another, with the lifetime value of each customer potentially worth thousands of dollars on average, then they'll never get why Apple's a winner," he said. "But that's great for you, great for me, because it means you'll keep getting opportunities to buy this ultra-high-quality company into weakness, so you, too, can own Apple, not trade it."
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Disclaimer The CNBC Investing Club Charitable Trust holds shares of Apple.
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