“Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster this morning reiterated an Overweight rating [on Apple (AAPL) shares], and cut his price target to $655 from $688, writing that investors are worrying too much about Apple’s gross margin, and that the shares can lift once new products come out, starting in the second half of this year,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s.
“Munster thinks investors are imagining a ‘nuclear meltdown’ in Apple’s gross margin, bringing it as low as 32% by 2015, “including 50% cannibalization of the regular iPhone from the cheaper iPhone, a 15% margin on the cheaper phone, and a 10% margin on the TV,” alluding to speculation Apple will introduce a television set,” Ray reports. “Munster performs his own calculations and estimates margin would fall only to 34% by 2015. That includes a 50% cannibalization of iPhone sales by the cheaper iPhone, at the lower 15% margin, and Apple taking 7% share of the “sub-$400″ smartphone market. He leaves out the impact of a television set, which he thinks could arrive later this year and, assuming a $1,500 retail price, would have a “’modest’ impact on profit margin…”
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