Ups his Apple price target $100 to $699 and 2012 iPhone sales from 145 to 155 million
It sounds like Peter Misek, Jefferies & Company’s senior Apple (AAPL) analyst, had a productive trip to Asia. In a note to clients Monday, he summarized what he found:
- Signs that Apple may be preparing to begin commercial production of a full-fledged television — which he calls iTV — around May or June for a pre-Christmas launch. His evidence, however, is pretty slim: small quantities of polarized films, filters, and IGZO components starting to ship to Apple’s Asian panel suppliers.
- Disappointment in Asia that the new iPad comes with a dual-core (and not a quad-core) CPU, which was taken as a sign that Apple’s A6 chip has been delayed.
- Despite widespread concerns that Apple would not be able to get its hands on enough large-screen Retina displays to meet demand for the new iPad, he believes those concerns were overblown. “We believe,” he wrote, “that builds of 12M to 15M for iPads in CQ1 look reasonable, and our checks indicate that Apple is attempting to boost builds for CQ2 from 15M-18M to 18M-20M.
- Signs that iPhone builds have increased significantly, with Foxconn producing an estimated 150 million units in calendar 2012 and Pegatron making anywhere from 25 to 40 million.”
- He continues to believe that Apple will release an iPhone 5 in calendar Q3 and could build as many as 50 million this year. He’s expecting an A6 processor and a new design with a wider shape and a 4 to 4.3-inch screen
Misek has upped his Apple price target to $699 (from $500), raised his 2012 iPhone sales estimate to 155 million (from 145 million) and increased his fiscal Q2 iPhone sales estimate to 33.2 million from 28 million.
