Apple's Mac computer sales are on the rise and on track to show a 29 percent jump year over year for October and November, and 13 percent for the December quarter. Those numbers come from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster who was working with data from the research firm NPD.
Apple's iMac numbers should be much higher year over year
Mr. Munster told investors,
While the 29 percent year over year tracking appears strong, we note that Apple was short 700,000 iMacs in the December 2012 quarter. While it is difficult to track the 700,000 iMac difference from last year into the current NPD numbers, we believe the NPD data directionally supports Street assumptions for a year over year recovery in Macs due to the easy comp. We remain comfortable with our 13 percent year over year growth expectation on Macs.
Considering Apple wasn't able to produce nearly as many iMacs as it wanted during its fourth fiscal quarter last year, it isn't a stretch to assume the company will out produce and out sell Macs during this year's December quarter. This time last year, Apple was dealing with iMac production headaches and limited parts availability, which severely cut into the available inventory
This year, Apple has a strong Mac product lineup going into the holiday buying season with recent laptop and iMac updates and reasonable inventory levels.
Mr. Munster is maintaining his "Overweight" rating and US$640 target price for Apple's stock. Apple closed on Monday at $557.50, and is trading in the pre-market at $557.15, down 0.35 (0.06%).
[Thanks to Barrons for the heads up]