Analyst: Current Quarter iPod Sales Likely to Miss Street Estimate

While the Wall Street estimate for iPod sales this quarter currently stands at 8.6 million units, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster on Monday released a report in which he said that his look at NPD data for April suggests that they will actually come in around 8.0 million. Heis currently estimating 8.25 million iPods sold.

However, Mr. Munster did issue a caveat: "As a result of iGrads and Dadsi buying, we believe May and June iPod sales will likely be better than what was seen in April ... When the second month of data is released, our analysis will likely lead to a slightly different iPod unit figure than what our analysis suggests based on the first month of data." In past years, this quarter saw 41.9% of iPod sales in June, with 33.4% coming in May and the remainder happening in April.

In fact, using historical trends to gauge sales, the analyst came up with an estimate of 8.9 million iPods sold this quarter. He wrote: "In the previous quarters, however, we have found that extrapolation of the first month data typically overshot the actual reported iPod unit number for the quarter, so we are removing 10% from the initial unit estimate."

The analyst retained his "Outperform" rating on Appleis stock, with a US$99 price target. At 1:26 PM EST on Monday, the shares were selling for $63.24, down 1.97% for the day. The stock has been trending downward since it opened above $68 last Tuesday.

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