Could Universal Display Be Among the Next Huge Apple Supplier Winners?

March 30, 2016 by Jon C. Ogg

The field of organic light emitting diode (OLED) technologies and materials may be a huge market in the years ahead. The use of OLED in flat panel displays and solid-state lighting could grow exponentially. Universal Display Corp. (NASDAQ: OLED) has been considered one of the de facto winners here. The company has been public for many years, but until 2015, revenues remained under $200 million per year.

With so much interest in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), one strategy investors use to win off of Apple is to invest in the companies that either are Apple’s top iPhone component suppliers or the companies that could be Apple’s next top suppliers. Universal Display might be one of those winners.

However, there are some serious risks to consider in Universal Display and emerging technologies. This stock has been public since before 2000 and has been range-bound mostly from $30 to $55 over the past five years. Its $2.5 billion market cap also gives Universal Display a massive valuation of about 13 times past sales and 100 times trailing earnings.

That being said, Universal Display is expected to grow sales 15% in 2016 and 25% in 2017, with estimates at $275 million in 2017 on earnings of $1.13 per share for 2016 and $1.68 per share for 2017, rising to $326 million in 2018 and $2.15 in 2018.

So, the reason Universal Display may be a huge winner here may stem from a Cowen upgrade of Apple. That upgrade was based on the move into OLED technology for its iPhone 7 or for phones beyond 2017. Universal Display was not a feature of Wednesday (March 30), but Cowen did feature Universal Display with an Outperform rating on March 21 — and it raised the price target to $65 from $58 in that call.