A look at the full three months of NPD data for last quarter points to approximately 8 million iPods sold, according to a research report issued by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster on Wednesday. He wrote: "While the Street consensus iPod unit number is 8.3m, we believe that the Street is expecting the number of iPods to be closer to 7.8m."
"We believe Street expectations for June quarter iPod units has become more and more conservative throughout the quarter and iPod units of 8.0m would likely be viewed as a slight positive," the analyst added.
Mr. Munster retained his "Outperform" rating on Appleis stock, with a US$99 price target. At 1:16 PM EST on Wednesday, the companyis shares were selling for $54.54, up $1.64, or 3.1%, for the day. Apple will announce its earnings for the previous financial quarter at 5:00 PM EST (2:00 PM PST) on Wednesday, after the markets close. Analystsi consensus estimates call for EPS of $0.44 on $4.4 billion in revenue for last quarter.
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