“Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster this morning pounds the tablet for shares of Apple (AAPL) stock, on which he maintains an Overweight rating and a $607 price target, writing that both the ‘buzz’ about new products, and the estimates for the company’s business, should ‘play out well in calendar year 2012,'” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s.
“Munster ticks off the possible product updates, including an ‘iPhone 5,’ an ‘iPad [3],’ and ‘potentially an Apple Television,'” Ray reports. “Although Munster is estimating revenue will rise just 13.8% in calendar 2013, he writes that new products could conceivably produce as much as 28% growth in 2013, which would increase his estimate for 2013′s EPS by $5.99 beyond his current $39.31 estimate.”
Read more in the full article here.
When I run Munster’s numbers, I get $611, not $607. Still, given this kind of range, traditionally “bold” PEAR predictions (+- PBAJ towards BUN) of $550-$575 seem conservative.
Puts things in perspective.
Apple’s worldwide share of handsets has grown from zero percent to 4% today, and accomplished that without a cheap throw away. The smart phone market is growing faster than the handset market overall.
Apple revitalized a “tablet” market that was moribund under MSFT’s leadership for 10 years. Apple i less than 2 years now dominates the rapidly growing market with >80% market share.
If Apple maintained just half the historical growth rates of these two products (all other products going completely flat), its growth during calendar 2012 will far exceed Munster’s “conceivable” growth rate of 28% by a factor of 2 (and be lower than 2011’s growth rate).
why would apple name their 6th iphone “iphone 5”?
5th anniversary model? Five years in the market.