Apple rises as analysts say tech giant is seeing uptick in demand
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Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares rose in early trading on Wednesday as a couple of analysts said the tech giant is seeing "positive" momentum in China and an uptick in demand for the iPhone.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who has an outperform rating, noted recent checks in China have been "incrementally more positive" as the country reopens its economy and rebounds from its COVID-19 related lockdowns. 
"The months of January and February and early indications around March are steady on the iPhone front for Cupertino globally which is a stark contrast to what we saw in the supply constrained December quarter due to zero Covid China issues," Ives wrote in an investor note, while raising the per-share price target to $190 from $180.
In addition, Ives said Apple (AAPL) has not seen any major unit cuts from suppliers in Asia and that over the past 12 months, the company has gained roughly 300 basis points of smartphone market share in China.
"With the highly anticipated anniversary edition iPhone 15 set to be launched in the September timeframe the baton handoff from iPhone 14 to iPhone 15 looks to be a steadier transition than some other peak to valley iPhone cycles of the past," Ives added. 
Looking ahead, Ives added that Apple (AAPL) is likely to make a number of new announcements in the next several months that could be "noteworthy," including the launch of its widely anticipated mixed reality headset, a hardware subscription plan, more service bundling options and new Mac computers. 
In a separate note, Cleveland Research analyst Ben Bollin also said iPhone demand looks to be "better-than-expected" in the quarter. 
"Feedback continues to call out [Apple] as gaining or maintain share across hardware categories and new this round of work is more talk on [Apple's] launch of an AR/VR device potentially at WWDC in June (unit forecasts still unclear)," Bollin wrote.
On Tuesday, Apple (AAPL) announced a yellow iPhone 14 and expanded its Emergency SOS satellite feature to several more countries.