Filed under: Apple Financial
Analyst Roundup: Morgan Stanley pooh-poohs, iPhone sales looking bright
Morgan Stanley analysts yesterday cut AAPL's price target to $95, mostly citing the weak economy. They said that despite price cuts, extreme interest in the iPhone, Mac users' high satisfaction, and marketshare momentum for Mac sales, the quarter will be slow for Apple.
Blog Notable Calls said it wouldn't have been surprised if AAPL slipped by five points yesterday, but instead the stock gained 34 cents a share before the closing bell.
On a brighter note, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu sees promise in iPhone gift cards, according to Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog. As with any gift card, Apple collects revenue from the customer up front. However, Apple can't report the revenue until the phone is activated, which will likely be during the first quarter of next year.
Wu anticipates Apple will sell 6 million iPhone handsets during the company's fiscal Q1 2009, which includes October, November and December 2008. Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty thinks Apple will sell only 4 million that same quarter.
In the same Apple 2.0 story, Philip Elmer-DeWitt notes that Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster looked at how many units Walmart might sell, after pricing details leaked on Monday. He conjectures that each Walmart store could sell 1,284 iPhones in 2009, accounting for nearly 10 percent of Apple's worldwide iPhone sales.
AAPL was up by $2.50 or so in midday trading.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mrsteveman1 said 2:51PM on 12-11-2008
These analysts need to stop speaking in public, AKA shut up. They say stupid crap that rarely if ever comes true, and in the meantime they have considerable control over the price of apple stock.
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Brian Flores said 2:52PM on 12-11-2008
Huberty is well-known as the worst of the analysts covering Apple... http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/09/29/apple-shares-took-a-nosedive/
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Fred said 3:17PM on 12-11-2008
Munster actually says each Wal-mart store would have to sell 1,284 units in order for Wal-Mart as a whole to sell as many iPhones as all the Apple Stores combined. He does go on to say that this is doable, but I don't read it as a prediction that that's what the Wal-Mart channel will actually sell.
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Howie Isaacks said 3:42PM on 12-11-2008
These analysts are never right. How in the hell do they even have jobs? These guys are morons. Every quarter, everything is "unexpected" to them. A 4 year old could more accurately predict Apple's performance.
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