Apple stock soars to a new high after company announces record holiday App Store sales

The record holiday-week sales represent a 16% increase from the year-ago period. App Store revenue totaled $386 million on New Year's Day alone, Apple said.
The record-high close follows an 86% gain through 2019, as strong iPhone 11 demand and a rapidly expanding wearables business fueled Apple's best year since 2009.
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Apple shares closed at a record high on Wednesday after revealing its App Store customers spent $1.42 billion between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.

The tech giant's stock soared as much as 2.4% on Wednesday after the company announced the record holiday sales figure. App Store developers have now taken in more than $155 billion since the platform launched in 2008, Apple said. A quarter of those earnings came from the past year, the company added.

The holiday-week sales represented a 16% increase over last year's figure, according to the statement. App Store revenue totaled $386 million on New Year's Day alone, a 20% jump from the year-ago figure and a record for single-day sales.

The past year was the biggest yet for the company's increasingly important services sector, Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services, said in the announcement.

"We begin the new decade with incredible momentum and gratitude to our customers who have shown such enthusiasm for all of our Services, and we continue to celebrate the work of the world's best creators, storytellers, journalists and developers," Cue said.

The Cupertino, California-based company helped push major stock indexes higher throughout 2019, surging 86% over the 12-month period on strong iPhone 11 demand and rapid growth in its wearables business. The annual gain was Apple's best since 2009.

Apple's outperformance in the past year is unlikely to be replicated in 2020, and the stock will " normalize at a higher valuation, " Deutsche Bank analysts Jeriel Ong and Ross Seymore wrote in a Monday note.

"In our view, such a setup bodes poorly for investors who consider what to do with their AAPL holdings from present levels, as the stock is unlikely to come close to repeating last year's returns," the analysts wrote.

Apple traded at $303.19 per share when markets closed Tuesday, up roughly 4% year-to-date.

The company has 27 "buy" ratings, 14 "hold" ratings, and seven "sell" ratings from analysts, with a consensus price target of $274.55, according to Bloomberg data.

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