In case you missed it, Verizon Communications’s (VZ) chief financial officer Fran Shammo yesterday afternoon remarked during an appearance at a Citigroup telecommunications conference that the company had sold more than 4.2 million of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone last quarter.
The remarks follow similar comments by AT&T (T) in early Decmeber about strong iPhone sales.
A couple of Street fellows weighed in last night on the announcement.
UBS Securities’s Maynard Um reiterates a Buy rating on shares of Apple, and a $510 price target. He’s still expecting Apple sold 30 million iPhone units in total last quarter but that may be too low relative to historical patterns and the continued expansion of the iPhone worldwide:
Assuming 8mn iPhones from AT&T, 1.2mn from Sprint, & 4.2mn from Verizon, the US alone would make up ~45% of our 30mn unit est for CY4Q. US mix has not been this high since the June qtr of �09 & seems unlikely given the cont�d rapid expansion of int�l countries & carriers since that qtr. US mix in FY11 ranged between 25-29%. If US mix was similar to the high from FY10 of 38% for CY4Q, it would imply demand for ~35.3mn iPhones. Each incremental 1mn iPhones is ~$0.21 in EPS.
R.W. Baird’s William Power, meantime, took the opportunity to reiterate an Outperform rating on Verizon and a $42 price target, noting that the 4.2 million units was well above the 2 million iPhone units that Verizon sold in Q3.
He also notes that the 2 million 4G smartphones Verizon sold in the quarter was well above the 1.4 million it sold in Q3.
Power, however, lowered his Q4 EPS forecast to 54 cents from 57 cents, as the higher number of smartphones will cut into the company’s wireless margin by five to six percentage points, he figures. The consensus is 57 cents.
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