Apple may have impressed investors with its fiscal third quarter earnings, but CNBC’s Jim Cramer thinks “the ultimate consumer products company” ought to have a price-to-earnings multiple to match.
“There are many metrics Apple uses, this has a 17 multiple. How is that possible?” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street.” “That is insane.”
Even though consumer goods company Proctor & Gamble reported 1 percent organic growth, Cramer noted, P&G’s 19 multiple still exceeds that of Apple. That organic growth is no where near Apple, he added.
Cramer has previously suggested Apple should be considered on par with top consumer goods companies and their mid-20s multiples for a number of reasons, not least of which are the tech behemoth’s die hard fans.
“Remember right when that face recognition [in the iPhone] X came out; $1,000 for a phone? But it turned out … people will pay for it. So we [Apple] will offer it at that price. It’s supply and demand,” Cramer said Wednesday morning following Apple’s strong earnings after-the-bell on Tuesday.
Cramer thinks Apple could afford to raise prices, at least for its AirPods earphones, which consumers are eating up, even though they were once considered “weird teardrops.”
“The only thing they’re making a mistake on is supply and demand and the AirPods. They could charge because they can’t make them fast enough, still,” Cramer said.
Shares of Apple were about 5 percent higher early Wednesday, with a stock market value approaching $1 trillion, after the company posted big beats on earnings per share and the average iPhone selling price.
Apple is “very much a new ‘FAANG,” the added “A,” Cramer said.
The “Mad Money” host popularized the term FANG, referring to the technology powerhouses Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet‘s Google. The second “A” for Apple has been added to the acronym over time by many market watchers.
