Wedbush: CODA’s Best Picture Oscar Bodes Well for Apple TV+ Growth

Image from the Twitter feed of Apple CEO Tim Cook

29 MARCH 2022 - One surprising factor to consider around the turnaround surprise for Apple shares Monday - the Sunday night Best Picture win for CODA. Not kidding. With that win, Apple TV+ became the first streaming service to land an Academy Award for Best Picture, a win that Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives refers to as a “drop the mic moment” for Apple. Apple 3.0 ran part of a note he wrote on Monday. The way he sees it, Apple beating Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to a Best Picture statue:

…should significantly bolster its subscriber base while attracting more A+ Hollywood talent to its platform for future projects. We view this Oscar win as a game changer for Apple on its content efforts and legitimizes the Apple TV+ as a major streaming platform with much more success ahead and the Street now starting to take more notice.

The note goes on to say:

We believe consumer subscriber growth should accelerate from Apple’s Oscar win and will give Cook & Co. more confidence around potentially doubling their content efforts over the next year. With Apple spending ~$7 billion annually on original content and having roughly $200 billion of cash on its balance sheet, we believe the company is gearing up to ramp original content and also bid on a number of upcoming sports packages (NFL Sunday Night Ticket) coming up for contract/renewals in future years.

Ives has an “Outperform” rating on Apple shares. His price target on the shares is $200.