Analyst: Apple June Quarter to be Above Expectations

by , 9:10 AM EDT, July 16th, 2007

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster thinks Apple may have a pleasant surprise in store for investors when it reports its quarterly earnings for June. He is predicting that Apple will report revenue above Wall Street's US$5.3 billion estimate.

The Wall Street consensus is that Apple will report it sold 332,000 iPhones for the quarter, but Mr. Munster expects the company will beat expectations there, too. "We have modeled for 200,000 iPhone shipments in the June quarter and the Street is modeled at about 330,000, but we believe Apple may have sold as many as 500,000 in the first weekend," he said.

Not surprisingly, analysts are expected to focus on the iPhone -- Apple's combination iPod and smartphone -- during the company's financial conference call on July 25. Although iPhone interest will be high, the real money makers for the quarter will likely be the Macintosh and the iPod. Even if Apple sold 500,000 iPhones in the first weekend, it would add only $12 million to the company's revenue.

Mr. Munster is predicting that Apple will report more than 1.6 million Macs sold for the quarter, coming in above Wall Street estimates. iPod sales may beat expectations as well, coming in at 10 million instead of the Street's expectation of 9.87 million.

Looking forward, Mr. Munster expects Apple will offer its usual conservative guidance for the September quarter. "Apple typically guides conservatively and we believe the company will guide in line, at best, with consensus for the September quarter of $0.83 EPS on $6.0 billion" in revenue.

Mr. Munster is maintaining his "Outperform" rating and $160 target price for Apple's stock. Apple is currently trading in the pre-market at $138.40, up 0.67 (0.49%).

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