Apple Pay (AAPL) has had a slow start compared to investor expectations, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster tells investors in a research note. He estimates Apple Pay is activated on about 20% of new iPhones sold today. Nonetheless, after a deep dive analysis, Munster believes usage of Apple Pay will grow "exceptionally" over the long term. Apple Pay, with a Secure Enclave/secure element inside of the operating system, has an advantage over Android Pay's (GOOG, GOOGL) host-based card emulation in that it's more secure with a similar user experience, the analyst contends. Munster keeps an Overweight rating on Apple with a $153 price target.

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IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG) launches Apple (AAPL) AirPlay in the first phase of hotel rooms, giving guests the ability to stream content privately and securely from their iPhone or iPad to the TV in their guest rooms. AirPlay is available at more than 60 hotels in North America, including properties like InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta, Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street and Holiday Inn & Suites Ottawa Kanata. IHG is the first hospitality company to provide AirPlay functionality as part of its in-room entertainment experience.

In a regulatory filing, Alphabet disclosed that its CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22.5K shares of common stock on April 17th in a total transaction size of $3.54M.

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Welcome to "#SocialStocks," The Fly's weekly recap of Wall Street's reactions to social media stock news. UPPING PARENTAL CONTROLS: The... To see the rest of the story go to thefly.com. See Story Here

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Truist raised the firm's price target on Alphabet to $170 from $158 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm is expecting the company to report "solid" Q1 results driven by "healthy" user engagement that continues to drive more ad spending across Search and Social, helped by an ongoing recovery in pricing. Conversations with digital ad agencies suggest that the momentum seen in Q4 was sustained in Q1 across Search and YouTube, though the management's commentary for Q2 may be cautious given the macro environment, with continued emphasis on investments in Cloud and AI, the analyst tells investors in a research note.

Maxim initiated coverage of Apple with a Hold rating and $178 price target.

Apple will consider making some of its products in Indonesia as the company plans to ramp up investment in Vietnam, Kimberley Kao and Ben Otto of The Wall Street Journal reports. "We talked about the president's desire to see manufacturing in the country, and it's something that we will look at," CEO Tim Cook said at a press conference, according to state news agency Antara. Cook did not offer a timeline for the investment or say what form it could take. Reference Link

The U.K. plans to hold talks this month with Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) and others to push a voluntary charter granting parents more control of social media use by young teens, Bloomberg's Ellen Milligan reports. According to people familiar with the matter, ministers want to launch a consultation later this month to gauge ways of limiting the potential harm to children caused by social media, and the proposed voluntary charter may involve tech firms agreeing to alert parents when their children are repeatedly looking up disturbing content. Reference Link

Apparel & Footwear Analyst Kummetz discusses recent earnings for CAL, NKE, SCVL, Google trends and weather analysis and March Footwear Survey results on an Analyst/Industry conference call to be held on April 19 at 12 pm.