Apple (AAPL) unleashed a slate of new hardware this week, with several new products featuring Apple’s in-house silicon, the M5 chips, which boast four times the GPU computing power of their predecessor.
These new products improve artificial intelligence-enabled workflows on its new laptops and will provide a revenue catalyst, according to Wedbush.
“AAPL launched its M5 Pro and M5 Max chips for its MacBook Pro devices, which are built on Apple’s new Fusion Architecture, which combines two dies into a single system on chip that includes a CPU, scalable GPU, Media Engine, unified memory controller, neural engine at the core, and thunderbolt capability,” said Wedbush analysts, led by Dan Ives, in an investor note. “The M5 Pro and M5 Max are over 4x the peak GPU compute for AI compared to M4 increasing its graphics capabilities by 35%, creating an improved performance across Apple Silicon.”
On Monday, Apple unveiled two new products, an updated low-end iPhone, known as the iPhone 17e, and a refreshed iPad Air. On Tuesday, the Cupertino company took the wraps off its new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, which also included the new M5 Pro and M5 Max processors. Finally, on Wednesday, it introduced its highly anticipated, low-cost MacBook Neo.
“While investors across the tech landscape have worried endlessly about the memory price impacts, Apple announced a slew of price increases across its new products alleviating concerns surrounding the tech trade,” Ives said. “Both updated MacBooks are seeing an increase in ASPs with the MacBook Air starts at $1,099 for the 13-inch model (up from $999) and $1,299 for the 15-inch (up from $1,199) while the MacBook Pro is priced at $2,199 (up from $1,999) and the 16-inch is priced at $3,899 (up $400 from prior model) as the company looks to pass through cost increases from memory onto the consumer to improve/maintain its margin profile.”
“We believe that putting higher ASPs across its portfolio is the right move given the uncertainty around memory’s impact on product gross margins as AAPL looks to navigate greater complexities across its supply chain,” he added.
Wedbush maintains its Outperform rating and $350 price target on the stock.
Apple shares have declined a total of 3.5% over the past five sessions.