Apple's Total Addressable Market Is A Lot Larger Than It Looks

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has long been a formidable force in the technology space — and it still has room to grow. Bank of America Merrill Lynch considers Apple’s total adjustable market to be much larger than what’s presently perceived for existing products.

According to a Friday note, the firm expects expansion into untapped or barely grazed markets, such as healthcare or automotive, to significantly bolster the company’s current 10-percent share of global consumer spending. And with $158 billion in net cash, mergers and acquisitions make adjacent market penetration entirely plausible.

Current Trajectory

Not considering Apple’s potential to tap into new markets, Merrill Lynch foresees revenue growth from $218 billion in 2016 to $283 billion in 2018.

Between the second quarters of 2015 and 2017, Apple posted increasing revenue from its Services division and sales of iPhone, iPod, Apple Watch and accessories lines, even as iPad and Mac revenue declined. Apple generally seizes about 31 percent of consumer spending on computers, 42 percent on tablets, 35 percent on smartphones and 28 percent on wearables.

Merrill Lynch thus perceives a $350 billion opportunity with market share expansion among existing businesses. However, yet unexplored products offer additional, long-term revenue opportunity upward of $100 billion.

Unrealized Potential

Total consumer IT spending partly comprises smartphones (43 percent), desktops and laptops (9 percent), tablets (4 percent) and wearables (2 percent) — product lines on which Apple already capitalizes. However, it has the technological capacity to branch into and control the other 42 percent.

With strategic adjustments, it could tap television (26 percent), video game consoles (2 percent), cameras (3 percent) and video players (2 percent), as well as the booming business of virtual reality, which is expected to yield a $30 billion TAM in 2020.

Apple can also permeate a $4.6 billion market for music streaming. Merrill Lynch identified an Apple Music market share of $1.2 billion in 2016, which leaves another $3.4 billion of TAM to seize. Meanwhile, the video and video game industries offer $10.3 billion and $12.6 billion, respectively.

“In our opinion, Apple is well positioned to capture share in the video game market using its iOS platform, but also to leverage that more broadly over time to support an experience similar to console gaming,” Merrill Lynch wrote. “Further recent hires suggest that the capability of the Apple TV can incorporate console gaming and set-top box all integrated into a single product down the road.”

Then there’s the $7.5 billion potential for Siri to rival Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)’s Echo and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL)’s Home, as well as to shift into the autonomous vehicle market. Merrill Lynch predicts that the latter could generate $1 billion in revenue by 2020 and $27 billion by 2025.

Finally, the company’s wearables could yield additional opportunities in healthcare. With Apple Watch’s monitoring capabilities, the introduction of HealthKit and ResearchKit, and new partnerships with medical organizations, Apple is aligned for significant disruption in the health space.

“We believe that Apple is on the cusp of playing a larger role in the healthcare industry as the company continues to set the groundwork by establishing stringent privacy controls, positioning itself to be a major contender in the battle to gain control over the mass aggregation of health-related data,” Merrill Lynch wrote.

Considering long-term growth, the firm reiterated a Buy rating on Apple with a $180 price target. At the time of publication, shares were trading around $155.56, up 1.6 percent on the day.

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