Apple has had a rocky start to 2019. With holiday iPhone sales coming in lower than anticipated, CEO Tim Cook has warned investors that the company's first-quarter earnings are likely to be weaker than expected. Apple is even slowing hiring plans as a result.
Analysts are predicting that a high-profile acquisition could be just what Apple needs to spark growth and get investors excited again. Some flashy acquisition targets could include Tesla, Disney or Salesforce.
But there's a Wisconsin tech company that should be on Apple's radar, at least according to CNBC's Jim Cramer: Epic Systems.
Cramer said Tuesday on his show that it's time for Apple to make an acquisition in the software space to boost its services revenue stream (currently iPhone sales account for a whopping 63 percent of Apple's revenue).
Epic, a provider of electronic health records, could allow Apple to grow within the healthcare space by giving iPhone or Apple Watch users the ability to view their health records.
"If electronic health records are ever going to achieve their full potential, you need something to act as a universal repository for all this data, and the iPhone and Apple could easily do it," Cramer said.
"If Apple wants to become the universal electronic health records provider, to be the handshake between, say, the Watch's data and the system, they're going to need to break into this market big, and the best way to do that is by acquiring the best: Epic," he added.
Epic, owned by 75-year-old Judy Faulkner, does $2.7 billion in annual revenue. It has nearly 10,000 employees and a sprawling, Willy Wonka-esque headquarters near Madison. Faulkner has publicly stated that she wants Epic to remain private, and an acquisition could be one way for it to scale without hitting the public markets.
"If [Faulkner] wants to retire with a bang, selling her company to Apple would be a good way to do it, especially because a deal like this one could potentially be revolutionary for the health-care sector," Cramer said.
