“In a note to clients Thursday, Merrill Lynch analyst Richard Farmer lowered his iPod sales estimate to 8.1 million units from 9.2 million units for the June quarter based on historical sales data. He lowered full-year sales estimates of the popular portable media player to 39.4 million from 43.4 million units,” The Associated Press reports. “But Farmer increased Mac computer revenue growth estimates ‘given what appears to be a decent early reception to new MacBooks. As iPods decelerate, the Apple story becomes more dependent on upside to Mac estimates, which we see as plausible,’ he wrote.”
“Farmer maintained a ‘Neutral’ rating on the stock but lowered his revenue and earnings estimates to a 2006 per-share profit of $2.01 on $18.9 billion of revenue, compared with prior estimates of $2.13 per share on revenue of $19.9 billion,” AP reports. “Analysts polled by Thomson Financial estimate 2006 earnings per share at $2.08 on revenue of $19.56 billion. The analyst also slashed 2007 profit estimates to $2.55 per share on revenue of $22.9 billion, from a prior estimate of $2.84 per share on sales of $25 billion. On average, Wall Street predicts Apple will post 2007 earnings per share of $2.61 on revenue of $23.6 billion.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If Apple hits Farmers’ estimates of 8.1 million iPod units for the quarter and 39.4 million for the year, that will be an increase of 1.945 million units over last June quarter’s 6.155 million and an increase of 16.903 million units over Apple’s last full year iPod sales of 22.497 million (Q1: 4.58M, Q2: Q3: 5.311M, 6.155M, Q4: 6.451M). Obviously, growth rates north of 600% simply aren’t sustainable, but year-over-year iPod unit sales growth continues.
Unfortunately, the AP article doesn’t spell out by how much Farmer increased Mac computer revenue growth estimates. That bit of information would’ve seemed germane to us.
[UPDATE: 12:12pm EDT: Updated Take to remove misplaced quibble over the word “decelerate.”]
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Related article:
Apple still In ‘early stages’ of iPod expansion – May 24, 2006
