• Apple: Repeating his Buy rating, Reid raised his December quarter EPS estimate to $5.21 from $4.93, “following recent store checks and industry data that suggest Mac, iPad and iPhones are tracking above our previous estimates.” He inches up his iPad unit forecast to 6.6 million units from 6.5 million, boosting his FY 2011 forecast to 22.5 million units from 22.1 million. For iPhones, he now expects the company to sell 9 million units in the quarter, up from 8.4 million. His Mac forecast goes to 4.27 million units from 4.13 million.
• Research In Motion: Reid assumes coverage of the stock from another analyst, and cuts the firm’s rating to Hold from Buy. “Our cautious stance reflects our view that RIMM’s window of opportunity to create a competitive ecosystem of smart phone content has closed,” he writes. “Our industry checks confirm that developers are devoting a declining share of dollars and creativity into developing apps for BlackBerry OS, suggesting the competitiveness of RIMM devices will continue to fade rapidly. We are modeling RIMM market share to decline from 15.6% in Q3 2010 to 9.2% by Q4 2012.” Reid adds that he expects the Playbook tablet to get “only minimal traction with targeted enterprise users.”
Much more in the full article, including Reid’s views on Garmin, Motorola, TiVo, Logitech, and Nokia, here.