Morgan Stanley Sees Apple's Mobile Payments Strategy As Big Stock Catalyst

Morgan Stanley commented on the implications of Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) mobile payments strategy as an important stock catalyst for Apple and NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ: NXPI), with Visa (NYSE: V), MasterCard (NYSE: MA), and American Express (NYSE: AXP) being beneficiaries of this plan.

Morgan Stanley sees risk for Gemalto (OTC: GTOMY).

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty sees growing evidence that Apple will adopt near field communication (NFC) as a core part of a mobile payment plan, while NXP is well-positioned to participate in Apple's mobile payment ecosystem. With the launch of the iPhone 6, Huberty sees NXP adding $250 million in sales and EPS of $0.25 in 2015.

Analyst Smittipon Srethapramote notes that Visa and MasterCard have endorsed host card emulation (HCE) which, alongside this mobile payment plan, would allow for near card-present interchange fees.

Andrew Humphrey, another analyst at Morgan Stanley, sees this move by Apple as a deflationary factor for Gemalto, and at worst could substantially reduce the addressable market for them in terms of mobile wallets. Gemalto is a firm specializing in secure OTA provisioning Secure Elements.

Apple is about even for the day at $602.88.