Two analysts Tuesday downgraded Apple shares, trimming sales expectations a day before the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s annual meeting.
Calyon Securities analyst Shelby Seyrafi warned clients Apple’s pricing “is vulnerable in today’s recessionary environment.” As a result, the analyst lowered Apple stock to Underperform from Outperform.
Seyrafi also lowered his Mac sales forecast for March to 2.19 million units from 2.35 million.
Declining PC sales prompted the analyst to reduce his Mac sales projection, according to Barron’s.
Pointing to a “more crowded” smartphone market, he also cut his iPhone projection to 3 million for the March quarter, down from 3.2 million.
While Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu retained a Buy rating for Apple, he trimmed slightly his sales and revenue expectations. The analyst now foresees Apple’s quarterly revenue at $7.7 billion, down a tad from an earlier $7.8 billion projection. Wall Street had expected Apple revenue to fall between $7.6 billion and $8 billion.
Wu Wednesday reported a slightly more pessimistic view of Mac sales while expressing the opposite for iPhone demand. Apple will likely report 2.2 million Macs sold in the March quarter, down from a previous expectation of 2.4 million. However, Wu projected 3.2 million iPhone sales during the quarter, up from 3 million.
Overall, Apple will earn $34.8 billion in fiscal 2009, down from $35.2 billion, according to Wu.
Echoing Wu’s iPhone estimates, Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes predicted Apple will sell 2.2 million iPhones in March, however demand should increase during the second half of fiscal 2009 after Apple unveils a refreshed line of handsets.
Wednesday, Apple holds its annual shareholders meeting. For the first time in 10 years, Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs will not attend.
