Speculators and investors make the most of numbers floating around
Brisk sales of Apple iPhone this holiday season prompted analysts to upgrade Apple’s share target price. Apple iPod touch 8 GB along with the Kindle Wireless Reading Device and Garmin nuvi 260W 4.3-inch GPS were the best selling electronics devices, according to Amazon during the holiday rush from November 15 to December 16.
Doug Reid of Thomas Weisel raised his estimates for the quarter and lifted his price target on Apple from $245 to $250. Shares of Apple rose 1.2 per cent to close at $211.61 on Monday. “ Reid wrote in a report that “Checks suggest December quarter sales of iPhones are tracking ahead of their prior estimates, driven by increased market penetration in the United States, additional carrier agreements in multiple countries, and first-time launches in Korea and China,”.
Brian Marshall, an analyst of Broadpoint AmTech also raised his price target on Apple’s stock to $260, which is approximately 11% higher than previous target, based on high sales estimates for the company’s iPhone in the December quarter. He said that “Despite the enormous success of the iPhone since inception in July ‘07, he strongly believe the device is still in its infancy with respect to penetrating the global post-paid subscriber market,”.
With every passing day, Apple’s iPhone sales, App store downloads and footfalls on Apple store are on a rise and so is the stock price. One such report by Flurry pointed out that Christmas Day downloads for the 3GS shot up 900 per cent when compared to an average of the three previous Fridays. The report also points out that Software downloads for Apple’s devices grew 51 per cent in December from the previous month. Analyst Brian Marshall puts a figure of 11.3 million units sold for the three-month period ending December way ahead of analyst expectations.
Speculation is rife that Apple could release an oversized iPod Touch as a tablet computer or the tablet may take the form of a scaled-down notebook computer, though there was no official word on that.