Barclay's Capital analyst Ben Reitzes told clients Tuesday that he expects Apple to turn in "solid" results for the June quarter when the company reports on Tuesday, July 21st. He said that his current estimates for the company could prove "very conservative," and reiterated that AAPL is his top pick.
In a research note obtained by The Mac Observer, Mr. Reitzes wrote, "We raised our estimates for Apple following the company's Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, which brought new products including new Macs and iPhones. Also, we have been vocal in recent checks that indicate sales surged for Apple in June. As a result, we believe our estimates could prove conservative."
Mr. Reitzes had estimated the company would sell 2.42 million Macs during the June quarter, which represents a 3% year-over-year drop, but now believes that could be too conservative, "given strong demand indications for new MacBook Pro products."
As with Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, Mr. Reitzes sees a wait of 7-10 days for new 13" and 15" MacBook Pro models as an indicator of their popularity. "We believe these lead times indicate very healthy demand trends for these new MacBook Pro models," he wrote.
He also repeated his estimates for 11% year-over-year declines for iPod unit sales (compared to a 20% decline for the broader digital media device market).
On a sidenote, he included a brief line about declining availability in iPod through Apple resellers lending credence to the notion that Apple could launch new iPods models in August. Rumors to this effect began recently circulating, with some expecting Apple CEO Steve Jobs to make his public re-debut at Apple after a six-month medical leave-of-absence at a new product release event as early as August.
Mr. Reitzes is maintaining his "Overweight" rating on AAPL and a price target of US$173 per share.
Apple closed the day slightly lower at $142.27 per share, a loss of $0.07 (-0.05%), on light volume of 12.3 million shares trading hands.
*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a small share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article.