Edible Apple

Over the past few weeks, shares of Apple have been on a tear. We seemingly can’t go a week without Apple’s stock price hitting new intraday and closing highs. Just this past Tuesday, shares of Apple closed at 324.20, a new closing high. Yet even with such a high stock price, Apple remains a relatively cheap buy considering its horde of cash and the room for growth ahead. Indeed, companies with similar financials to Apple are trading at much higher PE multiples than Apple.

That notwithstanding, analysts and investors are slowly but surely coming around and warming up to the fact that Apple remains an attractive stock, despite the steep buy-in price. A number of analysts over the past few weeks have successively increased their stock target for Apple shares to $400+ levels. But a climb to $400, or hell, even $500, is mere chump change compared to what Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster sees ahead for Apple in the next few years.

Speaking at the Ignition: Future of Mediaconference last week, Munster explained that Apple over the course of 5 years is on track to become a $200 billion company. Should that actually happen, Munster explained, Apple’s share price could very well hit $1,000 a share. To put things into context, Apple’s forcasted revenue for 2011 is $89 billion, so a rise to $200 billion is no small thing. But with the smartphone market still a relatively niche market, coupled with the relatively paltry PC marketshare of the Mac, Apple can arguably only go up from where it is now. And oh yes, there’s also the iPad – you might have heard of it.

You can check out Munster’s full presentation explaining how Apple may go to $1000 a share over here.