Visualize Apple has one of those huge monster trucks crushing its competition and you get the picture one analyst is sharing with investors. Fueling the Cupertino, Calif. firm’s onslaught is an incessant introduction of products hungrily awaited by consumers. “With the introductions ahead of the holidays, we expect a monster [December quarter] from Apple,” the Wall Street expert writes Thursday. What’s even worse for rivals mangled by Apple, the products just keep coming.
“A key part of the Apple story remains new product launches,” notes Wedbush analyst Scott Sutherland (no relation). Along with continued demand for the iPhone 4, Apple is on the verge of launching the iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S for emerging markets, as well as a 4G LTE iPhone and the iPad 3 in the second half of next year.
Add to that mix continued talk of Apple updating its Apple TV roadmap, the launch of iCloud, the growth of China and India markets and you get a revenue picture that keeps going like the Energizer Bunny. Little wonder, then, that Sutherland expects Apple will ship 26 million iPhones during the December quarter and now embraces a share target price of $530.
The analyst is just the latest to swoon over the Apple prospects. Wednesday, we reported Goldman Sachs views Apple as being inoculated against the economic woes afflicting PC sales. Goldman’s Bill Shope raised his target price on Apple shares to $520, remarking “Apple’s momentum appears even more resistant to macroeconomic pressures than we previously realized.” Like Sutherland, Shope forecast 26.3 million iPhones during the December quarter, up from 26.8 million. He also expects 13 million iPads.
Credit Suisse’s Kulbinder Garcha Tuesday also announced a $500 price target for Apple, saying the company “is only at the cusp of unleashing its vast emerging market potential” worth as much as $68 billion in additional sales.
