“The world’s most valuable company could be even more valuable in the next few months. The tremendous consumer enthusiasm for the new iPhone 5S and the iPad Air and iPad mini Retina have virtually assured Apple (AAPL) of a record,” Michael Blair writes for Seeking Alpha. ” Analysts estimates put the quarter at $57 billion in revenues and $14 per share of net income, an outcome that flows from iPhone sales of somewhere in the 52 million range and iPad sales of close to 30 million.”
“A lot of the market growth has been lower priced smartphones and tablets in developing markets, but the mainstream premium market where Apple dominates continues to advance as well. At least one analyst thinks Apple’s strategy to capitalize on user engagement and developer payouts trumps market share,” Blair writes. “Charles Wolf at Needham & Company concludes that market share ‘matters very little’ and is unconcerned that Apple’s worldwide mobile phone market share is below 10% according to Gartner data.”
MacDailyNews Take: As we often said, a single customer of quality with disposable income and the will to spend it trumps nine cheapskates who spend nothing after acquiring their pretend iPhone.
“The fact is the smartphone market continues to exhibit high growth and Apple can continue to grow even while conceding a bit of market share. IDC forecasts that there will be 5 billion people using mobile phones by 2017, up from 4.3 billion this year… Mere market share of units ignores what many think is more important – market share in dollars. Volume does not equate with value.,” Blair writes. “Apple is an innovator. New products will no doubt be invented and could add to these projections. The market would only have to assign Apple a multiple of 14 to 15 times earnings to push the shares over $1,000.”
<uch more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]