ATR Forecasts Strong June Qtr for Apple
by , 11:35 AM EDT, July 17th, 2008
American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu predicted on Thursday that Apple will show strong results for its fiscal 3rd quarter than ended in June. The expectation is US$7.3B in revenue, $1.10 EPS, 2.5 million Macs, 10.5 million iPods and 705,000 (2G) iPhones.
In a research note to investors, obtained by TMO, Mr. Wu enumerated key points to watch:
Mr. Wu also estimated a total revenue for FY08 at US$32.9B and $5.33 EPS. The iPhone estimate for Q308 of 705,000 takes into account the fact that Apple was out of stock of the iPhone 2G in mid May and the iPhone 3G did not ship until July 11.
There was concern by Mr. Wu that strong shipments of the iPhone could cannibalize iPod sales, and he's modeling a total of 55.9 million iPods in CY08. He has seen a strong movement to the iPod touch as customers are tending away from simple MP3 players.
For the iPhone he sees a total of 12.5 million iPhones sold in CY08, up from his previous estimates, and forecasts 22 million in CY09. That's substantially less than the estimate of Piper Jaffray's gene Munster who recently reiterated his belief that Apple would sell 45 million iPhones in CY09.
The analyst sees Mac sales a solid driven by three factors: back-to-school, mobility users and switchers. However, Apple may not quite reach the 3 million number for Mac sales in the September quarter, and as mentioned above, the forecast is for 2.8 million.
Finally, Mr. Wu set his 6-12 month price target for AAPL at US$220.
In Thursday trading, AAPL is generally holding steady in the US$173 range.