Bank of America Merrill Lynch referred to Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) as one of the "highest quality" technology stocks and expressed optimism about its differentiation AI strategy while maintaining a "buy" rating.

Amid the intensifying competition in the artificial intelligence race track, Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) is advancing its AI strategy through a differentiated path. According to the latest research report from Bank of America, Apple Inc. continues to make progress in on-device artificial intelligence (AI), and compared to other tech giants, its stock price is less affected by AI-related fluctuations, making it one of the "most quality" tech stocks currently. The Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan's team stated that Apple Inc. is strengthening its local AI capabilities through self-developed chips and building a supplementary computing power system through "private cloud computing." The bank believes that Apple Inc.'s core AI strategy lies in local inference, unified computing architecture, and cloud collaborative processing that prioritizes privacy, thereby achieving a balance between performance and data security. The report points out that compared to tech companies that rely heavily on AI infrastructure investments, Apple Inc. has lower direct exposure to the AI capital expenditure cycle, and its valuation logic is still mainly driven by consumer electronics and service business, making it relatively stable in the fluctuations of tech stocks throughout the year. On the hardware side, Apple Inc.'s latest M5 chip is seen as a significant advancement in its AI computing power system. The chip is equipped with a new generation GPU and integrates neural network acceleration units in each core, with performance improvements of up to four times compared to the previous generation M4, while the unified memory bandwidth is increased by around 30%. It is expected that Apple Inc. will release a higher-performance version of the M5 chip, the M5 Ultra chip, at the WWDC event in June, further enhancing its AI computing capabilities. Previously, the company has released the M5 Pro and M5 Max versions. Financially, Apple Inc. is expected to announce its second-quarter results for the 2026 fiscal year on April 30. The market consensus is that the company's earnings per share will be $1.94, with revenue of approximately $109.26 billion, higher than the $1.65 and $95.36 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year, demonstrating a stable growth trend. Bank of America maintains a "buy" rating for Apple Inc. and gives a target price of $325. The analysis believes that as AI technology gradually lands, Apple Inc. is expected to maintain stable growth while avoiding excessive exposure to industry fluctuations.